Neighboring Scenes ‘19: The Wolf House

If the animators, the Brothers Quay had made Colonia instead of Florian Gallenberger, Emma Watson and Daniel Bruhl, it would have been a much better film. It might have looked a little bit like this film, but not exactly so, because nothing else looks exactly like the remarkable debut animated feature of artists Joaquin Cocina & Cristobal Leon. They plunge viewers into a nightmarish world of fairy tales and Chilean history in The Wolf House, which screens during this year’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema.

Maria Wehrle was punished severely for allowing three little pigs to escape from her German crypto-Christian commune clearly modeled after the Pinochet-supporting Colonia Dignidad, so she follows their example. However, the pastor, a.k.a. the Big Bad Wolf, kept a close eye on her, as his narration explains. After finding refuge a mega-archetypal cottage in the woods, Wehle is reunited with two of her fugitive pigs, whom her fevered mind morphs into children for her to look after. Alas, things take a rather dark turn when they run out of food.

That is sort of the narrative gist of Wolf House, but not really. Story is definitely secondary to Cocina and Leon. They are more concerned with creating a nightmarish world, which they hand-crafted from raw materials as part of gallery installations throughout several countries. This is an extraordinarily macabre manifestation of stop-motion animation that bears comparison to the Quays and Jan Svankmaker. In some ways, it could considered the stop-motion equivalent of some of Terry Gilliam and Bill Plympton’s trippier work.

It is not just the frequently disturbing sight of characters being built up from the inside-out and then broken down again that will unnerve viewers. The Lobo Casa is a decidedly creepy place that would not be out of place in Calvin Reeder’s The Oregonian, which basically gives the audience an all too vivid idea of what Hell looks like (if you haven’t seen it, don’t). The art direction, credited to Cocina, Leon, and Natalia Geisse is impressive, but punishing.

Yes, it is dark and grotesque, but The Wolf House represents some extraordinarily detailed and immersive world-building. Cocina and Leon slyly evoke Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs, without getting slavishly bogged down in analogies. They also might jolly well be onto something when they suggest there is something sinister about a way of life that values security over freedom. Absolutely not for children, The Wolf House is recommended for adventurous animation connoisseurs when it screens this Saturday (2/23) at the Walter Reade, as part of Neighboring Scenes.

Neighboring Scenes ‘19: Buy Me a Gun

Gaze into the near future of Mexico, when drug cartels will control every aspect of life. Call it ninety minutes from now. Most average people have fled, leaving a depopulated economic wasteland in their wake. The country is unlikely to rejuvenate itself, because the cartels make it their business to search out and abduct young girls. “Huck,” as she calls herself, has eluded their grasp by passing for a boy, but her luck is about to run out in Julio Hernandez Cordon’s Buy Me a Gun, which screens during this year’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema.

Life is surreal for Huck, mostly in a bad way. Her junkie father Rogelio ekes out a living as the caretaker of a decrepit baseball field in the middle of the desert that caters to the cartel game-nights. What little he earns, he mostly turns back over to the cartel for drugs. However, he is acutely responsible when it comes to Huck, whose hair he cuts short to appear boyish. He also keeps her ankle shackled to a lead to prevent any grab-and-go attempts.

Unfortunately, Huck does not seem to fully appreciate the gravity of her situation, even though she should. She has heard no end of horror stories from the gang of orphans living rough in the brush surrounding the baseball field. Although Rogelio is cagey on the details, Huck still understands to some extent the cartel is responsible for the disappearance of her mother and her older sister. Nevertheless, her carelessness will bring down a lot of trouble on Huck and Rogelio.

Watching Buy Me a Gun leads to even greater respect for Issa Lopez’s Tigers are not Afraid, because she so effortless created a fable-like vibe, whereas Cordon’s flights into fantastical symbolism are exhaustingly laborious. In fact, the awkward attempts at Huck Finn allegorical parallels becomes altogether baffling late in the third act (there is indeed a raft, but Huck’s companion is a far cry from Jim, the escaped slave in Twain’s novel.

Admittedly, there are some tense moments in Gun, but any film that honestly depicts pervasive and arbitrary nature of cartel violence in Mexico will be unsettling. Huck is a realistically flawed character and young Matilde Hernandez Guinea shows both sensitivity and disciplined reserve beyond her years as Huck, but the character can be her own worse enemy, which becomes ever-more frustrating over time.

Cordon offers up no shortage of cartel violence and half-baked literary allusions, including the nearly feral pack of children, who are like the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, by way of Lord of the Flies. Yet, it mostly feels derivative coming after Tigers and the original Miss Bala, just to name a few examples. Painfully earnest but ultimately rather flat, Buy Me a Gun screens this Saturday (2/23) at the Walter Reade, as part of Neighboring Scenes.

Neighboring Scenes ‘19: Belmonte

Javier Belmonte is no Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst. This artist has no aptitude for self-promotion, so if he is going to make it in the art world, it be solely due to talent. Unfortunately, he is not much better at navigating his own personal relationships in Federico Veiroj’s Belmonte, the opening night film of this year’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema.

Frankly, Belmonte really should not complain about his career, because he has a retrospective opening soon at a prominent Montevideo museum. However, Belmonte does not do success well. He is more comfortable with disappointment, such as his failed marriage to Jeanne, whom he clearly still carries a torch for. At least Belmonte tries to pull himself together when his bright but highly sensitive daughter Celeste visits. The end, more or less.

To say that Belmonte has a loose, unhurried narrative would be a whopper of an understatement. Basically, this is seventy-five minutes of watching a man with more advantages in life than many “first worlders” have—commercial and critical credibility in the art world, a loving daughter—mope and brood his way through sunny Montevideo. However, there is something oddly compelling about his social awkwardness. In fact, we can see a kinship between him and Jorge, the shy yet hopeful art-house cinema programmer in Veiroj’s mature but life-affirming A Useful Life.

In fact, real-life painter Gonzalo Delgado’s breakout performance as Belmonte is quite impressive. Delgado contributed some design work to two of Veiroj’s prior films, so he must have picked up something through osmosis. Young Olivia Molinaro Eijo is also quite a remarkable discovery as Celeste. She is completely natural and unaffected on-screen, while also forging some warmly affectionate chemistry with Delgado.

In addition to portraying Belmonte, Delgado also supplied his paintings, which are quite striking, even if they seem to beg for a full battery of psycho-sexual Freudian analysis. Regardless, viewers will completely believe that Delgado is an artist, as he indeed is, and that his paintings are worthy of collectors’ attention.

The problem is it just doesn’t amount to very much, so there no way it could have the staying power of Useful Life. It is like a salad with a tasteful dressing, but no protein. Recommended to a limited extent, based on the quite endearing father-daughter relationship, Belmonte screens this Friday (2/22) at the Walter Reade Theater, as the opening selection of Neighboring Scenes 2019.