The Wolf House (La casa lobo)
This week the From Below Microcinema presents the Chilean stop-motion horror film The Wolf House (La casa lobo) on* Tuesday, September 24, at 7 pm.*
Here is the link to reserve a seat. Doors will be at 6*:50* and we’re starting the movie at 7*:10!*
The Wolf House, directed by Cristobal León & Joaquín Cociña (whose work you may have seen in the animated segments of Beau is Afraid), is, in my estimation, one of the most mind-opening and crucial pieces of animated filmmaking of this century. The film depicts a visceral version of the familiar lycanological fairy tales of the three little pigs and Little Red Riding Hood in order to examine the deep scars left by Colonia Dignidad, the remote, secretive cult created by emigrant Germans in Chile and utilized by the Pinochet dictatorship as a zone of internment and torture of dissidents.
Needless to say, The Wolf House deals with some extremely upsetting historical evils. In the words of media theorist Julián David Saldarriaga Cardona, “the harrowing narrative and formal structure of The Wolf House blur the lines between internal and external, repulsion and fascination, recalling the destablizing effects of abjects”, that is, a traumatic encounter with the real.
This is achieved through an incredible use of location in the creation of the animation. Utilizing an entire house, the film paints scenes on walls, depicts characters made of paper and plaster navigating and dissolving into and out of the floorboards and furniture, traversing through rooms in a way that makes the movie feel like being inside one of the most disconcerting haunted houses of all time.