Claymation, Chile and Nazi Germany offshoots combine in Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León's first full-length feature, THE WOLF HOUSE

Strange does not begin to describe the "bizarrosities" you'll find in THE WOLF HOUSE, the debut full-lengther (after a number of short films) from the creative duo of Chilean-born artists and filmmakers, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña. Jumping off from storytelling and fairytales into Nazism and Chile's own not-so-long-past fling with a dictator who gloried in torture and murder, the pair use symbols of just about every sort -- colors to animals to you-name-it -- to tell their fractured tale of a young woman, her two "children," and the descent into fascism.

Señores León and Cociña (shown above, with the latter on the left) seem to prefer the dark and the allusive to the lighter and more obvious. While this may sound promising (and for awhile it certainly is), for TrustMovies, this eventually weighs their movie down to the point that I grew tired of the utter dankness and repetition of being constantly hammered by symbols and what eventually seemed like awfully obvious, if not cheap-jack psychology.

For those of us who know and understand (granted, in my case, from afar) Chile's history and duality, the movie has its dark rewards, and I should think it will resonate most strongly in its homeland, and other nearby South American countries, each of which has had its own history of dictatorship and huge human-rights abuses. (As we here in the USA may ourselves soon have even more of.) Also, I suspect that shrinks and/or students/teachers of psychology will find much to marvel over here.

How you react to the animation may be another matter. I went into the viewing, as I do with all movies, without reading much about the film. I prefer to figure things out for myself -- this is simply more rewarding, overall, than being told by critics and/or publicists what you are about to see -- and this also allows surprise to do its work. Once I'd watched The Wolf House, I went back to read more about it, and I admit that the manner in which the artists did the filming is unusual and in its way impressive. (You can read more about that, should you choose to, here.)

While the claymation/stop-motion animation is often formidable visually, I don't think these artists have found anything close to a real storytelling ability with which to match their art. Symbols (with a little history tossed in) may be fine for awhile, but when that's what's mostly there, it all begins to pale. The brothers Grimm used symbols, too, intentionally or not, but they also knew how to tell a whale of a tale.

I originally watched The Wolf House almost two months ago, and unfortunately the notes I took seem to have gone with the wind. I don't have the time (or the desire) to view it again, but I remember all too well my initial reaction of being impressed with the art, while understanding the symbols, politics and philosophy, without finally caring a whole lot about the movie itself.

The film is unusual enough in a number of ways, however, that you may well have a different reaction. Running just 73 minutes, in German and Spanish with English subtitles, The Wolf House was to have opened theatrically in various cities but is now getting a virtual-theater debut nationwide, beginning this Friday, May 15, via KimStim. Click here then scroll down for more information and/or to see the very long list of participating virtual theaters across the country.  

Don't PANIC! But do see the inventive, hilarious animation of Aubier & Patar

When TrustMovies was but a lad -- and a young one, at that -- he wrote a multi-chaptered novella for his second-grade class entitled Cinnamon: The Story of a Horse. There was indeed a horse named Cinnamon in it, but there were also a raft of other animals, secret passages, chase scenes, haunted houses, and a grab-bag of plot devices this already movie-crazed kid had picked up from Disney, Abbot & Costello and Red Skelton -- among other prized sources -- inclu-
ding a finale in which the horse and his lady-love get hitched. "Horses do not marry," his second-grade teacher informed little Jimmy:
"They mate."

My story came to mind as I was watching the delightful and entrancing new animated movie from Belgium, A TOWN CALLED PANIC (Panique au village), written and directed by stop-motion animation duo Stéphane Aubier (above, left) and Vincent Patar (above, right) and based on their successful animated TV series from Belgium. As artists, these two are like little kids who want to cram absolutely everything into their crazy story -- and do: animals that act like humans, and humans who do, too; aliens (or are these simply "fish" people?), mad scientists, music lovers, policemen, politicians, haus-fraus and more. Secret passages are here, too -- whoopie! -- and they lead down to the center of the earth, where lava flows, then back up into the arctic air. Rhyme and reason take a much needed vacation, but amusement does not. If you fail to giggle almost first to last, I shall be very surprised.

The animators have corralled the vocal talents of prime-time local stars on the order of Jeanne Balibar (The Duchess of Langlois), Benoît Poelvoorde (Coco Before Chanel) and Bouli Lanners (Eldorado). The duo's incredibly clever stop-motion animation uses the simplest of objects -- figurines of a cowboy, and indian and a horse for starters, then surrounds these with more figurines that represent neighbors, townspeople, city officials, and finally those nutty scientists and aqua-folk.

At an only 75-minute length, the movie is short, but perhaps not quite short enough, as longueurs arrive after the first 30 to 45 minutes. These don't last, however; soon enough something so bizarre and funny has happened that we're off and running again. Aubier and Patar are like wildly inventive children who have loosed their imagination completely; yet they also possess the discipline (and the budget) of very smart adults. They're able to take life as it's lived today and place their figurines within it so that the most wonderful and bizarre changes occur. Nothing makes sense yet somehow everything does -- and sets us laughing, often with maniacal glee.

This pair knows all about internet shopping (and what can happen when your finger -- or some other object -- rests a tad too long on one particular key). They know movie cliches, too -- of mountain climbing and bar-rooms -- and how to upend these. I can't imagine that adults won't enjoy A Town Called Panic even more than will the kids, particularly the younger ones for whom spoken French with English subtitles will prove too much. ATCP is the only stop-motion animated feature ever to be shown as an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, and it has already won the Audience Award at the Fantastic Fest. Just as I cannot imagine that our own Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences would bypass this amazement for a Best Animated Feature nomination, I also can't foresee its winning. It's way too original and witty for that.

A Town Called Panic opens this Wednesday, December 16 at New York City's Film Forum. Bring the kids! I plan to see it again with my granddaughter, though what her bright but only four-and-one-half-year-old mind will make of it, I can't imagine.