The Chilean animated film The Wolf House / La casa lobo by Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León has been selected for the 2020 edition of The Contenders by The Museum of Modern Art, the annual series presented by the Department of Film that selects influential, innovative films made that the prestigious institution believes will stand the test of time.
In the spirit of Czech avant-garde master Jan Švankmajer, Leόn and Cociña’s painstakingly hand-crafted stop-motion feature is a nightmarish fairy tale inspired by a real-life Nazi commune that existed under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule, from 1973 to 1990. Fashioned as an obscure narrative of capture and control, the film riffs on Alice in Wonderland and the Three Little Pigs, animating the fragile existence of an escaped child attempting to make a home in a sinister cabin in the woods.
Following a live-action framing sequence, the filmmakers undermine the integrity of their pointedly artificial human and animal characters and settings with a 65-minute collage of seemingly unedited morphing effects that erase the line between fantasy and horror. An instant classic of surrealistic animation, The Wolf House is visionary in its imaginative breadth and a virtuoso technical accomplishment.
Named the Best Animated Film of the Year by the Boston Society of Film Critics and winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best First Film, The Wolf House will screen January 21-26, 2021, on MoMA’s Virtual Cinema, available exclusively to museum members.
