“The Wolfpack” (2015) is an stunning and fascinating documentary about six teenage brothers (and one younger sister) locked away in a small apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for most of their lives, rarely allowed to visit the outside world by their hyper-protectionist father (a Peruvian Hare Krishna).
The Angulo brothers have spent their many years of imprisonment delving into cinematic escapism, transcribing and memorizing movie dialogue verbatim and recreating the films at home using props and costumes fashioned (impressively) from household items. Their ambition and resourcefulness is simply extraordinary, as their acts of creation and their in-home performances are as spellbinding to observe as they are wonderfully bizarre to behold.
Ultimately the film finds the brothers at a stage of burgeoning rebellion against their incarceration as they yearn to explore the outside world for themselves—their growing independence delivering a strikingly compelling degree of human drama to the entire proceedings. Really one-of-a-kind stuff that’s so bizarre, it’s hard to believe that it’s all actually true. Very much worth seeking out and experiencing first-hand.
View the trailer: