La casa lobo

Maria is a carefree girl living a happy life in a commune, in which there is singing when working in the fields and the people are as modest as they are caring. At any rate, this is what we learn from the gentle voiceover and grainy documentary material. But one day, when three pigs escape from Maria’s careful watch, she is punished by the commune with one hundred days of silence. Maria flees into the forest and seeks protection in a deserted house: a place that promises peace, and a place where objects grow out of the walls. Dreams – but also her memories, in colour or in black and white – walk through pictures and beds and shelves. They refuse to let go of Maria. Painted or crafted right before our eyes from a wide variety of materials and always life-size, they unfurl their sinister terrors. They become intrusive, like the wolf that prowls around the house. The wolf has time, for it knows that sooner or later, hunger and the oppressive power of the past will drive Maria out of the house.
In a virtuoso manner, the stop-motion animation film demonstrates the havoc the Chilean “Colonia Dignidad” wreaked on people. The colony was a private sect founded as a German exile idyll by Paul Schäfer in Chile in 1961. Abduction of children and child abuse were a daily occurrence, as well as torturing and murdering opponents of the regime – with approval or on behalf of the government during the Pinochet dictatorship. Schäfer was convicted in 2005 and died in custody in 2010; a former leading sect member still lives unchecked in Germany today. “La casa lobo” is the first feature film by the two Chilean directors Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León and has been honoured with several awards, including a Jury Distinction. (mc)