Wolfpack, fundie documentary on Netflix

[Geechee Girl]

This new  release documents the lives of a fundie family who lives in total isolation in NYC projects. The children are homeschooled, and their only exposure to the outside world is through secular movies. The father forbids the wife & children to leave the tiny apartment. The Patriarch's form of rebellion against the government is to not work. 

[AliceInFundyland]

Oh this might be just the ticket right now. 

[AliceInFundyland]

...certainly a different sort of weird.

[Antimony]

I am about 5 minutes in and I am completely just blown away. Tarantino films are...violent...and to watch children act them out was really disturbing. 

[AliceInFundyland]

i don't know what to think. 

[JHeathen]

I'm sure they will be coming up on TLC very soon.  :::puke:::

[Geechee Girl]

The kids are completely brainwashed that NYC is the big bag world, yet they can recreate Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction. I don't understand why social services didn't put all the children into therapy. 

[artdecades]

Its on netflix? I checked it out from the library but haven't watched it yet. My understanding is that their parents were more paranoid than fundie. Fundies would not be down for Reservoir Dogs

[Geechee Girl]

 

Fundies come in all flavors. This particular brand was patriarchal pseudo-quiverfull with a touch of Hare Krishna wrapped in abuse & the sovereign citizenship.

[church_of_dog]

22 hours ago, Antimony said:

I am about 5 minutes in and I am completely just blown away. Tarantino films are...violent...and to watch children act them out was really disturbing. 

 

Can you (or anyone) say more about the violence?  I just added it to my netflix queue but in general I can't handle Tarantino-type violence.  How bad is it? 

[Antimony]

3 minutes ago, church_of_dog said:

 

Can you (or anyone) say more about the violence?  I just added it to my netflix queue but in general I can't handle Tarantino-type violence.  How bad is it? 

So, I haven't finished it but it's all fake violence. They make guns out of cardboard and stuff. To me, it wasn't the actual idea of the violence but that these kids obsessively reenact them. And these are their favorite films of all time which is even more upsetting.

It's very strange to me that he wanted to shelter them from the world but brought them home the most violent films.

[church_of_dog]

3 minutes ago, Antimony said:

So, I haven't finished it but it's all fake violence. They make guns out of cardboard and stuff. To me, it wasn't the actual idea of the violence but that these kids obsessively reenact them. And these are their favorite films of all time which is even more upsetting.

It's very strange to me that he wanted to shelter them from the world but brought them home the most violent films.

oh gotcha, thanks for explaining!    All I could think of was having to turn off Kill Bill about five minutes in but the little bit I saw is etched in my mind, unhappily...

This one sounds interesting, I look forward to seeing it.

[Antimony]

Okay, so, I'm most of the way through (I could not watch this in one sitting, it's kind of strangely paces and very odd) but this article addresses a lot of the questions that aren't answered:

https://thedissolve.com/features/emerging/1058-crystal-moselle-addresses-the-wolfpacks-many-open-/

[keen23]

The Wolfpack kind of reminds me of the Browns of Alaska (however, the Browns are mostly fake, so there's that).

[Geechee Girl]

@Antimony Thanks for the link!

[religiouslyconfused]

What a shocking movie, and I probably should see it. I might end up being terrified after watching it. 

[Mitz_]

I really enjoyed this film but it left me with so many questions. Oscar, the father only gets a couple of minutes of screen time and nothing he says makes any sense. I think an awful lot was left unsaid about the abuse they suffered at his hands. In one scene one of the boys says something about how some things are just so awful and unforgettable that you just never really get past it.

Some of the boys are living and working out in the world now but others are just so damaged and having a very difficult time. It's hard to find out what they are all doing now and it seems that some of them are still living in that apartment. 

The story isn't about abuse it is about how they survived through their love of films. For them it is all about movies and they really don't want to talk about the abuse or their father.   

There is no violence in this film, not really.

 

[AliceInFundyland]

Thanks for that article. It explained a lot. Still weird.

[church_of_dog]

I watched it last night -- fascinating!  I agree, @Mitz_, that they didn't really explain what the dad's real issues were nor the details of what had happened at his hands.

I had moments of being reminded of the Arndts, especially with the "all boys but for one girl" demographic as well as the adults all living at home.  I also had moments of being reminded of the book/movie "The Mosquito Coast" -- although kind of in mirror image -- in Mosquito Coast the father is so terrified/repulsed by "the world" that he moves his family to a remote spot in Central America.  For the Angulo family, it baffles me that they did the opposite -- stayed in the area that they were obviously so afraid of -- why not move to some rural area where it's safer?  The claim was made that they stayed for the cheap/free housing.  But if Oscar didn't work, and they lived off welfare plus what Susanne got as a homeschool subsidy, you'd think those would have been available in other locations as well, plus a lower cost of living in terms of food, utilities, etc.

I also really wanted to know how they got all their stuff -- everything from the crafts supplies they needed to make their elaborate costumes, to clothes for the family -- did they order everything through catalogs or online?  They seemed to have lots of "stuff" that a family just barely scraping by wouldn't have -- video equipment?  Suits for all the boys?  Thrift stores offer lots of stuff on the cheap but you kind of have to try things on, and it was mentioned that dad mostly only went out "for food".  Maybe with so many so close in size, they just got several sizes of things and whoever they fit, go to wear them, and then there were only a fewer hard-to-fit ones left to search for?

I watched all the extras on the netflix disc -- two short movies that Mukunda made, plus a short showing their first trip to LA/Hollywood after the Wolfpack started receiving accolades -- they were able to meet some of their favorite directors, etc.  I'm glad things seem to have gone well for them, but I agree that there is more to this story and probably still much psychological work needed for them to heal from their trauma.  All in all, they were all so articulate and self-aware, it really left me amazed at their mother as the one who apparently gave them not only their formal education but also whatever "context" for the world they didn't get from watching movies.

It wasn't really about their religion in any way, in fact the Dad, in one of his few comments onscreen, said something to the effect of wanting them to be free from religion, among other aspects of the culture that he feared.  They decribed the dad as a Hare Krishna devotee, and that was the source of the childrens' names, but they didn't show them engaged in any religious activity or conversation whatsoever.  Hmm...

One last note -- it was odd watching them re-create movie scenes -- turns out I have not seen a single movie that they re-enacted -- in fact a few times I didn't even get right away that they were doing a scene, until it became obvious.  Still a bit unnerving to watch.

[Mitz_]

"Unnerving" is a perfect word for how I felt about the film also.

Here is a link to the first part of a 20/20 special about the Angulo family. It offers a few more details.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCf6C0ZNVU

[Pixiedust1960]

I will be checking this out. Are there any other Fundie shows to watch?

[DaffyDill]

On 10 January 2016 at 6:21 AM, Mitz_ said:

"Unnerving" is a perfect word for how I felt about the film also.

Here is a link to the first part of a 20/20 special about the Angulo family. It offers a few more details.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCf6C0ZNVU

Thanks for the links @Mitz_, that was great. The other two parts of the series are there also. They're all so fascinating, and have this almost childlike sense of wonder. Good on them - I hope they go on to be successful, and most importantly, happy 

[RabbitKM]

Is this still on Netflix? I searched and I didn't see it.  

ETA Nevermind! It just had a picture that I did not associate it being about fundies.

[Emilycharlotte]

I watched the film and it's pretty fascinating. I don't think the "fundie" label is applicable, though.  The father, to me, seemed like an abusive, controlling person with some serious mental illness, and the mom seemed to be a gentle soul who was so extremely beaten down (emotionally, not necessarily physically) that she wasn't all there. I don't know how she managed to educate all those kids and give them so much love and support in those circumstances, but my hat is off to her.  But they aren't fundies by any definition I would use.

[sockinshoe]

The re-enactment stuff isn't unusual in and of itself. I know I used to re-enact movies I liked with friends and family. 

The violent/age inappropriate content is also not terribly jarring to me because my parents were really bad at age-appropriate content (oh sure, show the 11 year old Last Tango in Paris; it's a great film). 

What gets me is the claustrophobic atmosphere. There's just too many people in too little space. What's really scary about this movie is not what you see on the screen, but what that implies about this family. Chilling.