The Wolf House
===

[00:00:00] Alicia: Hey, just a heads up the episode you're about to listen to is about the Wolf house directed by Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León and written by Alejandra Moffat, Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León and our host ranked this movie as existentially disconcerting. If you'd like to learn more about the movie discussed this evening, please visit our website. Progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm for show notes and a transcript.

After the spooky music we'll talk more about the movie in full. So be forewarned, there will be spoilers.

Now let's get on with the show.

[00:00:49] Jeremy: Good evening. And welcome to progressively horrified the podcast where we held horror to progressive standards it never agreed to. Tonight we're talking about the Chilean animated movie, which unless you've seen this movie is like nothing you've ever seen before. It's The Wolf House. I'm your host of Jeremy Whitley.

And with me tonight, I have a panel of cinephiles and cenobites. First, they're here to challenge sexy werewolf/ sexy vampire binary, my co-host Ben Kahn. Ben, how are you tonight?

[00:01:13] Ben: Well, that sure was an artistic Nazi fairy tale?

[00:01:18] Jeremy: Yeah. Well, we'll get into that. It's hard to establish exactly what this movie is, but helping us to do that tonight is these Cinnamon Roll of Cenobites our co-host Emily Martin. How are you tonight? Emily?

[00:01:31] Emily: I've decided that as I am the Cinnamon Roll of Cenobites, I would like you all to refer to me as MTO. That's a Berserk joke. I'm really sorry.

[00:01:42] Jeremy: Either a reference to the anime Berserk or a joke that has gone berserk. It's hard to tell.

[00:01:47] Emily: Yes.

[00:01:48] Jeremy: It's difficult to tell the difference. Before we jump into the full discussion of the movie, we're gonna do a quick recap. And tonight that falls to Emily. Oh boy. Emily. Uh, Good luck with this one. Let's hear a little bit about this film.

[00:02:00] Emily: All right. Well, let me tell you, speaking of anime, my experience with anime has prepared me for this. That and my, my fine art education, because this is an art film and It's stars, Amalia Kassai and Rainer Krausse, who I believe we just hear their voice talents.

[00:02:16] Jeremy: Yep.

[00:02:16] Emily: Um,

[00:02:16] Jeremy: Rainer is the Wolf and Amalia is the main character as well as most of the voice in the movie.

[00:02:22] Emily: Yes. So in order to properly recap this movie, we gotta get this out of the way. Yes. This is an art film. The visuals are mostly made up of animated tableaus inside of a house that are constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed as we watch. There is narration, which has an alternating, literal and symbolic relationship with the visuals.

Lots of stuff is going on. That said, I'm providing some of my interpretation in with this recap to help us kind of make sense of it. If you disagree with my interpretation, please hit me up at Twitter. I am @MegaMoth on Twitter. You don't have to involve Jeremy and Ben in this one. I'll take full responsibility.

Oh. And the narration switches between German and Spanish, but we have subtitles. So thank goodness for that. This movie begins with a movie and a meta intro of a faux eight millimeter propaganda film that explains that this German commune in Chile is not totally sus as fuck, and all those nasty rumors about it are definitely not true.

Sure. Lots going on. We haven't even started the actual film yet. This film reel then introduces the actual story and animated nightmare fuel tale about a young girl from the quote unquote community- it's a cult and I will henceforth address it as thus- named Maria, who is disobedient and ran away to avoid punishment.

Maria runs into the woods and take some pigs with her because the only thing she likes about the commune, excuse me, cult are the animals. Apparently there's a wolf in the woods. So she runs inside a magical house for protection and decides to make it her own. She uses the magic of love and desperation to turn the pigs into humans.

The magic of Christmas might also have something to do with it. Not quite sure. She names them, Anna and Pedro, and she teaches them how to eat at a table and speak and wear clothes and all that kind of stuff. Basically she's trying to colonize the pigs. Now is a good time to mention that Maria, like other members of her cult is blonde and blue-eyed. Her newly transformed children are not. uh, She tells Pedro a story about a dog that leaves a house and suffers consequences.

Then there's a story that she tells to herself about offering little animals up to trees and getting fruit in return. This is important for later. Maria tries her best to make a proper happy family, but has doubts as the Wolf, which is a metaphor, whispers from outside that she sucks at doing things by herself and she needs the Wolf to survive.

Maria's doubts culminate by accidentally question mark, setting her children on fire question mark? The kids survived, but are burned so badly that they have dark skin. I'm gonna come right out and say, this is also a metaphor.

[00:04:56] Jeremy: Also one of them might be a giant head? That's all that seems to be left of, of him throughout.

[00:05:01] Ben: Don't you just hate it when you accidentally set your magical pig children on fire-

[00:05:06] Emily: And then they just come back as giant heads? Like I said, this is animated nightmare fuel.

[00:05:11] Ben: This movie loves its process. It loves things just coming into existence as it needs them.

[00:05:17] Emily: Like meaning. So the fact that the kids aren't super white enough for Maria is a problem for her. So she smothers them with magical honey, which we presume is from the cult and they become blonde and blue eyed. I would say Aryan, but the whole nomenclature of that white supremacist bullshit is so convoluted. I'm not gonna go there. Now everything is great, but they don't have enough food, I guess, because she used all the honey? Maria wants to leave and get food which is a fruit from a tree apparently- mm-hmm- but the children won't let her. And they're worried that the Wolf will get her. The children tie Maria to a bed to keep her from escaping. And she is terrified they will eat her. So she invites the Wolf inside. Yes, the Wolf is the racism all along. That's my interpretation.

The children become trees and Maria returns to the cultafter succumbing to her fear of failure to meet fundamentally racist home and family standards. She goes on to be a missionary for the cult. The end. And yes, cult, you have certainly sorted out the truth about those nasty rumors.

[00:06:12] Ben: Yeah. Some real big uh, remind me of that Twitter meme might not involved in human trafficking. T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt, energy.

[00:06:23] Emily: Exactly.

[00:06:24] Ben: So to provide some historical context, our creepy Nazi cult in this movie and the Wolf is all based off of Colonia Dignidad a German speaking colony that really did exist in Chile for about like 40 or 50 years, was a big supporter of the Pinochet Dictatorship, did a lot, lot, lot of atrocities and was founded in led by a former Nazi named Paul Schäfer who later died in prison in 2010.

[00:06:57] Emily: Isn't that Paul Shaffer-

[00:06:58] Jeremy: Not the same Paul Shaffer, yes?

[00:07:01] Ben: Probably different.

[00:07:02] Jeremy: Not the, not the-

[00:07:03] Emily: David Letterman, Paul

[00:07:07] Jeremy: I'm just saying a different Paul Shaffer.

[00:07:10] Ben: It's not great, when the first sentences of your Wikipedia page is Nazi child rapist, minister, and founder and leader in sect. Like that's not a great sentence to start. Like you don't want that being the opener of the epi of the obituary.

[00:07:28] Jeremy: Yeah. I mean some-.

[00:07:28] Emily: Not to, to sound sus, but-.

[00:07:30] Jeremy: Some people get really proud of their, their slashies, you know, those, those different hyphenates that you can get in there, various different things you, you accomplish in, in your life. That's a rough, it's a rough set right there.

[00:07:43] Ben: Imagine opening with Nazi and be like buckle in. It's gonna get worse from here.

[00:07:48] Emily: Is that a triple threat? Like an actual, real threat?

[00:07:51] Jeremy: Yes. It's an actual triple threat. Yes. Triple threatening.

[00:07:55] Ben: He will apparently he have a beautiful singing voice, but they buried that in like paragraph nine of the Wikipedia page. No, no, that's not. That's not true. Don't like that up. Oh, okay. Don't look up whether the Nazi child rapist could sing well.

[00:08:07] Emily: Well, that's actually, like, I was actually curious about that because I'm like the singing did come into the story of this film.

[00:08:16] Ben: No, he mainly just ran a fascist state within a state by doing whatever atrocities Pinochet's government asked of him or that he just wanted to do on his own.

[00:08:27] Jeremy: I mean,

[00:08:27] Ben: So that is our historical context.

[00:08:30] Jeremy: Yeah. I feel like we should address the context that the film puts it in, which is like they do start and end with something. That's almost like a documentary infomercial kind of thing with live action. You know, it seems like a portrayal of a little commune cult thing, and it's set up with like them giving this, discussion of it like it's propaganda, like, you know, oh, we're not, we're not really bad. There's been a lot of rumors about us. And you know, here's a, a video of us that proves how okay we are. And the video is about this woman, like fleeing the commune and trying to live on her own and discovering that she like can't handle raising these pig children by herself and having to invite the Wolf slash cult back in to save her.

Um, yeah. It's definitely like handled from the perspective of the directors is really like, yes, these are bad racist people. This is not really the message we want you to take from this, but this is a propaganda piece from within this fictional cult about this stuff, which is heady for a 70 minute film.

[00:09:45] Ben: Yes. When you really pull back on the plot and the framing device and what it is, this movie really actually has the structure and plot of one of those bizarre infomercials. Like, has this ever happened to you? Oh no. My magically turns human pig children are going to eat me. Well, call one 800 Nazi cult. That's one 800 Nazi cult.

[00:10:13] Emily: Just in case you can't remember. Well, turn the first thing you read on Wikipedia.

[00:10:18] Ben: And now my pig children have turned to trees. Thanks. One 800 Nazi cult.

[00:10:24] Jeremy: You know, it's not often that I can favorably compare the plot of a movie to M. Night Shyamalon's The Village.

[00:10:32] Emily: I mean,

[00:10:33] Jeremy: But.

[00:10:33] Emily: There's. Okay. So this is one of the reasons that I like being an illustrator and a comic artist rather than being a fine artist is because with fine art. Yeah. You can go hog wild, but with something like this, where it gets so as Jeremy put it heady, which I think is perfect because that's the part of you that we will be hurting after this film.

If the message is couched in so many contexts that it's like hard to access- you know, there's a message there and it's very like symbolically and visually present, but there's no like, and that's why you never blah, like it's from the perspective-.

[00:11:21] Jeremy: Always leave a note.

[00:11:22] Emily: Yeah. That's-

[00:11:23] Ben: I feel like. I mean, you really nailed it when you said this is an art film. I mean, my partner, who again, went to art school and whatnot and all that artsy grad school stuff. You know, they, she looked at me watching it and her first thing was, this looks like the kind of thing my teachers always wanted us to make in art school.

[00:11:41] Emily: I mean, this a plus project don't get me wrong.

[00:11:45] Ben: This is a stunning artistic achievement. That is the result of unfathomable amount of dedication and labor. It is-

[00:11:59] Jeremy: Five years!

[00:11:59] Ben: - haunting. It is beautiful. It's kind of a fucking slog.

[00:12:04] Jeremy: Five years to make 70 minutes. And I mean, I. I think there's so much artistic merit and art and hard work here that like, this is all done in one shot.

It took five years to make. Like it's part of the director's mission that there is not a single black frame in this. It never cuts away. It never stops the whole time. And that everything is sort of like transformed and, and being built on the fly inside of this. The directors had 10 rules on how to animate this uh, which I think it's worth going over.

One. This is a painting on camera. Two. There are no dolls. Three, everything can dream be transformed as a sculpture. Four. It never goes to black. There is no black frame. Five, the film is a one shot sequence. Six. The movie tries to be normal. Uh, Seven, the color is symbolic. Eight. The camera is never in the same position in two consecutive frames. Nine, Maria is beautiful. 10. It is a workshop, not a set.

[00:13:08] Ben: I'm sorry. One of the rules was, Maria is beautiful.

[00:13:11] Jeremy: Maria is beautiful.

[00:13:12] Ben: I- I'm sorry. I, this movie has some explaining to do to my paper mache nightmares. The paper mache people were horrifying messes.

[00:13:25] Emily: Well, the, the people are like, they're all sculpted out of foam and tape. Like it's all foam and like layers and layers and layers of uh, masking tape. When they are not animated paintings on the three dimensional surfaces of walls, the figures are the, tape and the foam that's been painted.

And then sometimes they have wigs. Like that's it. And yes, color is symbolic, but I mean like, yeah, it's a, it's a painting. Yeah, of course. Color's gonna be symbolic for something like this. Every single frame, you can see the amount of decision making that's going, you know, everything is deliberate here.

The same way that with animation, you know, everything has to be deliberate. And this is, I think the reason that this movie feels like a slog is because there's so much happening visually all the time. Pictures are changing into different things and, items are coalescing to become a single mass and all this kind of shit.

[00:14:21] Ben: It feels like the kind of thing that should be-

[00:14:23] Emily: It's exhausting.

[00:14:24] Ben: -playing on a wall at an art show that I'm half watching while drinking wine and pretending, like I know about art.

[00:14:34] Emily: I mean, it reminded me a lot of, of William Kentridge work that was animated, like charcoal drawings and stuff where you could see like the shadows of the previous drawings and the kind of process there. I mean, like, I, I mostly have seen William Kentridge stuff in art galleries and it is very, It's not like a narrative like a, of a regular narrative structure. Let me just put it that way.

[00:14:58] Ben: This movie is really good at setting a very specific tone. A vibe. Creating an atmosphere that I think is only really broken in one moment of the film. And it's when she like the pigs have turned into human kids and she's dressing them in clothes.

And Pedro is dressed in what is very clearly a Denver Broncos jersey?!

[00:15:22] Emily: Oh yeah. The magic Broncos Jersey.

[00:15:26] Ben: Okay. Why was it a Denver broncos Jersey?

[00:15:29] Jeremy: I was totally expecting Ben you specifically to comment on the fact that at one point their dresser has Pokemon stickers on it.

[00:15:38] Emily: Oh yeah. There's a cars poster and Pokemon stickers and like dragon.

[00:15:42] Ben: Oh shit. I missed the Pokemon, but I fucking nailed the Denver Broncos Jersey.

[00:15:47] Emily: Yeah. Well the, the Denver Broncos Jersey was interesting because it was also like at the very beginning of the movie, when she shows up in the house. Sort of.

[00:15:55] Jeremy: Yeah. Fucking scorbunny made it into this movie. So.

[00:15:58] Emily: Yeah. Which is, which was weird for me. Like I almost didn't even-.

[00:16:03] Ben: How did I miss that shit?

[00:16:04] Emily: Because you're not like registering things as actual things. Like it's one of those, like Pokemon is like looking at letters and losing the idea of them as meaningful as a word. Like you're just seeing, like, that's a weird line, you know, like shapes and, and objects are starting to lose. Meaning because so much shit is going on is crazy.

[00:16:26] Ben: This everything lost, meaning things just like, like this movie, one of this movie's favorite visual things is it's almost like this is a world without object permanence and things only come into existence as Maria needs them to exist or sees them exist.

So this movie is constantly giving you. Starting out with like empty rooms or things, or like, or bodies that then gradually come into existence as the scene moves and shifts. It's extremely dream.

[00:17:03] Jeremy: Like, and it also all takes place inside this one room or, or inside this one house over the course of this story, like it begins and ends with her, like getting to the house and leaving the house.

Yeah, I, this is, this was a real test for me because being somebody who is a creator who makes stuff and often like deals with, with critiques, I often find myself telling people who are, are criticizing things. Like, look, some things are good and bad, but it's okay to admit that a thing is just not for you.

And that was 100% my feeling like about this movie is I watched it and I was like, that took a lot of work is really well made. There's a lot there. I will not be revisiting this movie. I do not like this movie. It is not for me.

[00:17:54] Ben: I'm gonna skip ahead to the, do you recommend this? I'm gonna say I recommend any particular 15 minutes of this movie. And then once- cuz I feel like 15 minutes is enough to take in the vibe, see all the different techniques and tricks and transitions and ways this movie does things take in the full take in the artistry. Appreciate the work and the craft and the talent and beauty that went into it. And then you're pretty much good. I don't think you need the other like hour of it.

I think you can check out after like 15 minutes. Well, any particular 15 minutes, like do the end beginning, middle just enough to give you the vibe and just be like, damn, there's some art.

[00:18:36] Emily: But also, look at TV tropes or whatever, because I think the story is important. But it also is like such a, like a nesting doll of a, of a perspective that you really need to, make sure that you identify what specifically is being said.

That is not, you know, a celebration of this cult, but rather just how fucked up cult mentality can be and how inside your head it gets. When people are trying to free themselves from this kind of toxic lifestyle.

[00:19:07] Ben: I don't care what you say, there's nothing, there's nothing sus about declaring yourself an angel who embodies love and protection.

[00:19:14] Emily: Oh, yeah!

[00:19:15] Ben: Totally not sus.

[00:19:16] Emily: Oh my God. like-.

[00:19:18] Ben: Totally a super healthy thing to say.

[00:19:21] Emily: I took notes furiously, and then I forgot all of them once I did the recap. So let me open that back up. Yeah. This, this movie is fine art baby, but and you know, the idea of every scene as like a transient, like, it builds to a full Tableau and then breaks back down and becomes a different Tableau. You know, it's basically like you're watching someone build an art piece and then break it down and then build it up and break it down.

[00:19:49] Ben: Again, the amount of work that needed to go into the simplest of moments in this movie is mindboggling. A moment I particularly liked is when the pigs turn into people, because the way it's done just makes it look like an Animorphs cover.

[00:20:08] Emily: Well, they start with like, they get hands and feet instead of hooves, and then they start walking around and-.

[00:20:16] Ben: Oh, I did not like when the pig suddenly grew hands. I did not like that one bit.

[00:20:20] Jeremy: You know how, when you try and explain Animorphs it sounds like the creepiest weirdest fucking thing ever. This is that. This is what people think animorphs is when you try to explain it to them.

[00:20:30] Emily: This is Animorphs.

[00:20:31] Jeremy: Yeah, the underlying racism of the pig stuff and the, honey and color stuff. And the fact that the kids turn into crazed cannibals uh, and, and attempt to eat her It's a lot. And I don't like it.

[00:20:45] Emily: Yeah. The, the fact that they be, they were pigs and then they became children that are not Aryan or, you know, not considered Aryan or not.

[00:20:53] Ben: That don't speak English. And she's very upset about that.

[00:20:56] Emily: And then she becomes a missionary at the end where she's like, well, I couldn't do it by myself. So I need the help. The cult's help in order to, you know, create this ideal,

[00:21:05] Ben: I need the guiding hand of a strong paternal authority.

[00:21:10] Emily: Yeah. Which I thought was, it was clever. Cuz the only image of a Wolf- I mean we get the TV Wolf- but then we also get the German shepherd, which I'm like, oh, well that's pretty on the nose.

[00:21:20] Jeremy: The one thing that's really clever and got me from like a story point of view of this, thing is, is, you know, she runs away from the cult and the Wolf is chasing her.

And it turns out at the end that the Wolf is the cult. Like the Wolf is yeah. You know, that has been waiting outside, keeping her from being able to go out and you know, eat and be self-sufficient and live this life is the cult it's just out there waiting for her to invite it back in. Yeah, that, that was the bit that I was like, whoa, chilling.

Did it really take the 70, 71 minutes to get there?

[00:21:51] Ben: Yeah. I mean, I could never figure out what I was supposed to be taking literally or not like her house is burnt down, but it's not, I mean, everything. I mean, everything's just so ethereal. It's a beautiful, like it's a hauntingly ethereal movie that also kind of meant maybe I'm just a dum-dum, but I'm like, I don't know what the fuck's going on.

I'm just along for whatever the fuck you tell me is whatever the fuck things are shifting into now. A lot of scenes on a toilet where they- we spend a lot of this movie on toilets.

[00:22:23] Jeremy: Surprising, surprising amount of toilets in this movie. There's a lot of like a lot of the building and unbuilding of, of things in this movie and the, the painting in real time and stuff is part of what makes it, it difficult to watch and keep up with because the bits of story are really kind of sprinkled in process.

Like

[00:22:42] Ben: this is a movie that's in love with the process. I feel like its primary goal was showing you. Beautiful amazing painstaking art process and telling a story with plot and character art and themes was secondary to the process. Like this is a real example of the medium is the message.

[00:23:05] Jeremy: And I get the real feeling that the makers would not argue that point with you that like the art is the thing and yeah, the plot is secondary.

[00:23:14] Ben: And the art is stunning. The art is a towering achievement.

[00:23:21] Emily: That's one of the strengths of having like a very, very simple message. Yeah, like I think it, it kind of bit off, more than it can chew in terms of the message, because like I said, we have this like story that is told by Maria about herself, unless it's by the Wolf about Maria.

But she goes between Spanish and German. Generally when the Wolf is speaking, it's in German.

But it'll flip. there's no like visual point, it's all tonal in terms of the storytelling.

[00:23:53] Ben: Also earlier. Did I say that Maria was upset because they kids weren't speaking English. Yes. How fucking Amer- sound -centric of me? What a fuckings asshole I am, she was upset they weren't speaking Spanish. I'm just such an Am- I am a-

[00:24:06] Emily: Or German.

[00:24:07] Ben: Fucking yeah. Or German, like what a complete Americentric piece or shit I am.

[00:24:14] Emily: I mean, I don't think you're that, but like I, but that's, I mean,

[00:24:19] Ben: I, I need to, I just need to call out my own mistake.

[00:24:21] Emily: No, totally. Because like, that's another thing about this movie that I think is important is that it is all about these racist ideals that people don't like, these people just don't register are totally racist.

And, the idea of the like colonizing missionaries, who, who go out on this pretense of helping people who are less civilized, ultimately they think that they're just less human. So this metaphor of the pigs turning into people like this German cult is trying to enlighten the people who they see as animals around them.

And then they, they have this like huge superiority complex because they're doing that.

[00:25:01] Ben: I didn't know if it was going the direction of the Cult Winds or if this was meant to be like the fucked up German retelling of Grave of the Fireflies that blames the dying children.

[00:25:16] Emily: I mean, I'm not sure.

[00:25:19] Ben: Cause you know, that's what the German Grave of the Fireflies would be, would be like the children brought their starving to death upon themselves.

[00:25:27] Jeremy: Oh no. Now the idea of Hans Christian Anderson retelling Miyazaki films has really upset me

[00:25:34] Ben: As well it should! It's an upsetting thought

[00:25:39] Jeremy: it's been then turning around and then, you know, hating the kids the way Hans Christian Anderson stories do.

[00:25:47] Ben: Is Totoro gonna eat some kids? He might! I dunno what to tell you.

Totoro eats kids now.

[00:25:54] Emily: That's funny because Ponyo is based on the litter Mer- little mermaid, sort of. I mean, Hayao Miyazaki's like, I'm gonna have this, this idea and then I'm gonna base a thing on it. And actually it's about how humankind is horrible, but in sort of an oblique way.

[00:26:08] Ben: I feel like the theme of most Miyazaki films can be summed up in that one line from Men in Black Person can be smart. People are dumb.

[00:26:18] Emily: Yeah. I am really-

[00:26:19] Ben: It's always about, about individual dealing with just a society as a whole who are just so bad.

[00:26:26] Emily: Yeah. It's a society and we live in it. Oof.

[00:26:29] Ben: But or it's just about burnout.

[00:26:31] Emily: Yes. Don't tempt me. I'm gonna continue to talk about Miyazaki. If we, you know, cuz that's something I feel confident about, whereas this?

[00:26:40] Ben: All I feel confident about is like, like you said, man, this would've gotten an a in like every art cl- like,

[00:26:46] Emily: Oh yeah.

[00:26:47] Ben: Class. I fucking, these people are getting like all the honorary MFAs after this.

Yeah. I mean-.

Whatever the fuck.

[00:26:54] Emily: They

[00:26:54] Ben: Doesn't matter.

[00:26:55] Emily: Probably could get a MFA from-.

[00:26:56] Ben: Give them an honorary MFA. It's as good as a real MFA.

[00:27:00] Emily: They I'm sure they all have MFA-.

[00:27:02] Ben: Fucking shots fired. Come at me. MFAs. Tell me it didn't waste years of your life.

[00:27:08] Emily: Brett was an MFA.

[00:27:09] Jeremy: Come at you...

[00:27:10] Emily: Brett'll, let me grab- Hey Brett. It's okay. He's just teaching college with his MFA.

[00:27:16] Ben: What's he gonna do? Help more people get MFAs so they can teach people how to get MFAs?!

[00:27:22] Emily: Yes, that's what you do with them.

[00:27:23] Ben: Alicia. Please edit out this wild anti MFA rant I've found myself on.

[00:27:27] Emily: Ben is dragging MFAs.

[00:27:29] Ben: I am

[00:27:30] Emily: It's not, it's not sincere.

Don't worry. Brett's fine. He's just, he lives here. Anyway. The part where I really just kinda lost the re like the linear? Narrative.

[00:27:48] Jeremy: Was it the beginning?

[00:27:50] Emily: No, I was, I was keeping up cuz I, I was also taking notes furiously.

[00:27:54] Ben: Oh, I was taking notes at the beginning. I was like, whoa, that painting turned into a lady. Whoa, that lady like melted and then like five minutes later, I'm like, ah, this is just gonna be the whole fucking movie. Like I'm not even, I'm not gonna write this down every time this shit happens.

[00:28:06] Jeremy: Weirdly I think that this movie is best explained, like Hausu, in gifs. Like.

[00:28:11] Emily: Yeah, this is definitely a gif. A series of gifs.

[00:28:15] Jeremy: But, but I definitely have a, a gif of the painting of a pig you know, changing its, its hooves to hands and then kicking around a ball.

[00:28:23] Ben: If you're planning on taking shrooms and watching a movie not this one.

[00:28:29] Jeremy: It's either a great million or a terrible plan. I'm not sure what, what you want to get out of your experience.

[00:28:35] Emily: You may, you may...

[00:28:36] Ben: I'll tell you right now, watch Tron legacy, but ya didn't hear it from me. I don't not speaking from any personal experience.

[00:28:45] Emily: Okay. I dunno if I want, I mean, Daft Punk.

[00:28:48] Ben: Oh Tron legacy's wonderful.

[00:28:50] Emily: I know it's pretty.

[00:28:51] Ben: I love that movie.

[00:28:51] Emily: It's very pretty. Cuz Daft Punk is in it.

Okay. Get

[00:28:56] Ben: to, yeah. Before we end up with another Digressively Horrified.

[00:28:59] Emily: Like five of them. There's a point in the film after the fire, and maybe I wasn't paying enough attention cuz I was like kind of traumatized from the images of the kids, like vomiting, black tape from the fire and all this kind of stuff.

And then

[00:29:15] Ben: Maria, not just vomiting, like crying, like eyes replaced with streams of black tape. Yeah. There's very demonic.

[00:29:23] Emily: Yeah. It was very, it was very upsetting. So.

[00:29:26] Jeremy: Boy just became a giant head and a bed that's yeah. Well she goes, I don't know how much that's supposed to be literal.

[00:29:31] Emily: I, and then she goes to sleep and her colors melt off of her and I was like, oh dissociation. I know what that's like. Cuz that was like the most, one of the most like literal images that represent disassociate association of me. I was like, Hey. But then I'm like, oh, she's dreaming. And then, but then like the movie keeps going. So I'm like, is the rest of this? A dream is the second half of the movie is, is that a dream?

Did she die? Like, that is the, that is where the metaphor really breaks down for me. I mean, I know that there's so much density to it that it's kind of hard to keep up with, like the metaphorical relationship of the, the story to the images. Especially when it's like, here's some G you know, animation, animation, animation, here's a bird.

[00:30:17] Ben: Also just like she can manipulate reality at will. Sometimes. Or, but not to make food just to transmogrify life. Well,

[00:30:28] Emily: and it's weird because there's like, I mean, I know the, movie's trying to say stuff about subjective reality because the entire thing is subjective because it is her telling a story or the Wolf tar it's always like first person.

Well, I mean, it's, it's from the perspective of the character. So it's third person on, I don't know what it is. I'm not the writer. I like the cool tape people, but like , the fact that reality is changing subject to Maria's wishes, I think is also because she's trying to essentially colonize or, or, you know, create this ideal.

But, you know, she thinks she can do it better by herself, which is the message about the pride that she has. And you know, I think the movie's message. Pretty much is that her ideals were just so toxic that it wasn't manageable on her own because once she got out there and tried to do her own thing, she really ha didn't have the frame of reference to accept things that she couldn't control, which is why she was afraid that the children would eat her.

[00:31:33] Jeremy: Is there a case to say that at some level, this is about like, white saviorism and allyship, and the fact that like this person who is coming from this cult, even though like they're leaving the cult, they still have these concepts and these uh, just, you know, that the world of this cult built so much into their brain, that they're not able to imagine a, like a, a better world. They're just able to recreate the same thing that they're running away from. And, you know, eventually will- will go back to that when things don't turn out the way they want to.

[00:32:08] Ben: Yeah. She just seeks to create her own little white people, family that she can control.

[00:32:14] Emily: Yeah. I mean, in a way I think that the fire cuz the fire comes up when she starts really doubting herself. So, and it looks deliberate. Right? She wants, I feel like she's turned self sabotage.

[00:32:26] Ben: She wants children who are also as loyal and subservient, as pets.

[00:32:32] Emily: Yes.

[00:32:32] Ben: Which is not how things work when you become a parent slash magically transmogrify pigs in a creepy house into people and a family.

[00:32:43] Emily: Yeah.

[00:32:44] Jeremy: What your mom always said.

[00:32:45] Ben: Look when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much they use haunted house Nazi magic to turn like a pig into a person and then give it honey to make it the race they want. I guess.

[00:33:00] Emily: That's why I'm never having kids.

[00:33:01] Ben: That's why I'm never eating honey.

[00:33:03] Emily: I love honey.

[00:33:04] Ben: Yeah, me too, I love honey.

[00:33:05] Emily: I don't get it from cultists.

[00:33:06] Ben: I- again-

[00:33:07] Emily: I mean, Hmm. I don't know. Actually I got it in Santa Rosa.

[00:33:10] Ben: What words just came outta my mouth. Like what string of absolute ludicrousness did I just say in trying to wrap my brain around this movie?

[00:33:21] Jeremy: Nazi honey bad. Guys-

[00:33:25] Ben: Nazi, honey bad. Sounds like the name of a world war II exploitation film.

[00:33:30] Emily: That's yeah, actually.

[00:33:33] Jeremy: How, how-.

[00:33:34] Emily: Terrible.

[00:33:35] Jeremy: How do you guys feel like this movie handles LGBTQ issues?

[00:33:38] Emily: I mean, there's so much shit going on in the background. I'm sure there's something in there, but I don't think it, it is, there's nothing that is discernible.

[00:33:46] Ben: One point where they draw a window swastika first. And I still don't know what to make of that shit.

[00:33:53] Jeremy: Yeah.

[00:33:53] Emily: That's, that's basically like, oh, they're Nazis by the way. Like, I think that's just where they're like, yeah.

[00:33:58] Ben: As soon as the German people showed up in south America, I'm like, oh no Nazis.

[00:34:03] Emily: Oh yeah. Well, totally. But like, I'm glad that they actually did the swastika window. This has nothing to do with LGBTQIA.

[00:34:10] Ben: The only time I've been glad...

[00:34:12] Jeremy: you think that sentence has ever been uttered before. I'm glad they actually did the swastika window.

[00:34:17] Emily: In this case. I just, because I don't like- this doesn't have to do with lGBTQIa, but-.

[00:34:22] Ben: The only time.

[00:34:23] Emily: This is the only time that a swastika window is good.

[00:34:26] Ben: The only time you cut to German people in south America and something good happens is when the next like, uh, action in the script is, and then Magneto walks in.

[00:34:38] Emily: Or like Hellboy comes in and Destroys their...

[00:34:42] Jeremy: it's somebody murdering Nazis.

[00:34:44] Ben: As soon as I started hearing German in my Chilean film, I knew it was time for me to buckle the fuck up.

[00:34:52] Emily: Oh yeah. The second it was like we're a German cult in Chile. I looked at my buddies and were like, so what you doing between 1933 to 1945?

[00:35:02] Jeremy: Yeah. Like that, that ties very much into what racial themes are here. It's very under the surface understanding that this is a Nazi fairytale and that, you know, the subtext is rough.

[00:35:15] Emily: Yeah.

[00:35:15] Jeremy: And, and the same, I think goes for class. I mean, they're dealing with the, you know, pigs to some extent as a as the class. Boy. That's rough to say.

[00:35:25] Emily: Yeah.

[00:35:26] Ben: There's a little-

[00:35:26] Jeremy: That's not a good mouth feel.

[00:35:28] Ben: There's a little animal farm in here.

[00:35:30] Emily: Yeah. But it's not like with animal farm, the pigs became bougie but that was their choice. You know, like this is something that labels, that discusses that racism in a way that is like very, I mean, in a way it's very honest. But it also is very uncomfortable because, you know, you're not sure, like you're seeing this racism towards the people of Chile.

[00:35:57] Jeremy: if you were watching, this is gonna be weird comparison, but it's like, if you were watching, this is spinal tap with absolutely no like context about rock and roll you would just be like.

[00:36:08] Emily: Yeah!

[00:36:09] Jeremy: Oh, like they must mean this. And it's like, oh no, no. That's a joke about rock and roll and about.

[00:36:15] Ben: That's exactly what this is.

[00:36:17] Emily: Yes. Thank you.

[00:36:18] Ben: This is spinal tap with no. Outside context about rock and roll.

[00:36:22] Emily: For us.

[00:36:23] Jeremy: Also, I'm gonna guess.

[00:36:24] Ben: Yeah, for us.

[00:36:25] Jeremy: Probably even-

[00:36:26] Ben: that's a reflection on us, the viewer.

[00:36:28] Emily: Yeah, no, I mean, this isn't a, this isn't a joke, but this is definitely reliant on a very specific context. And also, this telescoping context that starts out with the movie being like a meta movie, like this movie is a film that is a propaganda film. That is part of this first propaganda film to do propaganda at you like that for me, kind of does the job. But it's still the, the stuff that goes on within the um, the nightmare of Maria is still like, it's hard.

It's so hard to follow at times that I, you know, I'm losing the clarity which for something that's about. racism. It's hard to see that in any sort of complex way, other than like racism, bad, you know what I mean?

[00:37:17] Jeremy: To some extent, I feel like it's, what if Springtime for Hitler were a weird fairytale? You know, it's like, you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to like what they're saying. You're supposed to understand that it's Nazi propaganda, but also we don't maybe have the context for some of it to like sink in automatically without us going.

Oh, like Nazis ran away after world war II and hid south America. That's what this cult is supposed to be. Yeah. And, you know, there might be things even there that we're missing, but it, it also does have this feeling of like, a German, Hans Christian Anderson type fairytale where the moral that you're supposed to get is like, stay with the cult and, and uh, continue with our ideals.

You can't do it by yourself.

[00:38:04] Emily: yeah. Which is why I'm glad that they did the, the swastika window, because I think it, other than that, there wasn't the term Nazi in there anywhere, but I mean, unless like a little bit of history yeah. Would, would give you the context.

[00:38:16] Ben: But we are talking about something that in its native country would be something comp that, from what I understand would be beyond ubiquitous and well known.

[00:38:26] Emily: Yeah.

[00:38:26] Ben: That This is a place that did a shitload of atrocities in your country for decades. And whose leader only died in prison a decade, like about a decade ago. Uh, We may just be dum-dum Americans who don't know anything, but the audience absolutely has context for this movie that we sure don't.

[00:38:49] Emily: It certainly makes me want to know more about the context, which I think is an important point of the film.

[00:38:56] Jeremy: Yeah.

I think there's so many, so many of the messages here about class and race and, and feminism, especially are sort of hidden under this veneer of the fairytale and it being, you know, a, a bad Nazi fairy tale and it's its own way.

So I, I think it's hard to, it's hard to quite qualify what those what those things are. So I guess leads us to this question again, we've already sort of answered it to some extent of like, do we recommend people check this movie out? Is it worth seeing?

[00:39:27] Emily: I would say yes. As long as, you know, going fully knowledgeable that it is I mean, I would look up the story first because you, I think you really need like a read along for this one to really, really get the idea.

this is I think, a companion piece to some research about the the filmmakers and the context of the movie. I think that, that it, you know, by itself, maybe not, but with some knowledge.

[00:39:53] Ben: Definitely-.

[00:39:54] Emily: Certainly.

[00:39:54] Ben: Do research because learning is power and knowledge is good. I know bold stance knowledge. Good. I'm gonna, I'm so bad.

[00:40:04] Jeremy: In this economy?

[00:40:06] Ben: I'm gonna say, watch it at least enough to appreciate what they're doing and like the level of artistry and scale and work that went into this. And otherwise I'd say, check it out, appreciate the art, watch it until you get bored.

[00:40:22] Jeremy: Yeah. I mean the, the art is really incredible and it's worth seeing what they're doing, even if it is at some points nightmarish in- in execution.

It's hard to recommend it for me, just because there's a lot here and it's delivered so slowly and it's so difficult to just sit down and continue to pay attention to this. It's only 71 minutes long, but there are long silences and pauses over like weird art stuff going on.

[00:40:52] Ben: It's a long 71.

[00:40:54] Jeremy: The longest.

Yeah, so it's hard for me to recommend from a standpoint of like, I won't be watching this movie again. I, I did not enjoy it. It's not for me, but there is something like, definitely worth seeing about it because it is like nothing else. Like I've, I've never seen anything else like this. And I've seen a lot of weird horror movies.

[00:41:14] Emily: I mean, I've seen Jan Švankmajer stuff, which is kind of like this and then mad God, which is a recent thing, which is a lot more like sci-fi crazy, but you know what, Jan Švankmajer, doesn't usually have commentary about racism like this one does.

[00:41:32] Ben: Yeah.

[00:41:33] Emily: Which I guess takes us to recommendations.

[00:41:35] Ben: I'm gonna recommend anything made by studio LAIKA. You know, ParaNorman Kubo and the two strings, incredible stop motion films. Absolute works of art. Um, But definitely more traditional storytelling and film making approach to it. But still gorgeous, gorgeous triumph of art.

[00:41:56] Jeremy: Yeah. And, and in their own way, much more um, Narrative. And it's more watchable in that regard.

[00:42:03] Ben: Yeah, Coralline too, but I haven't seen that one yet, cuz I assume we'll cover it at some point.

[00:42:08] Jeremy: Yes. Oh yeah, we should. I love Coralline. It's great. It's weird. It's spooky. Emily, what did what do you have to recommend?

[00:42:15] Emily: Well I mentioned Jan Švankmajer, just go into I the one that I feel like would be most applicable in terms of recommendations to this is Alice, which is Alice in Wonderland, but fucking crazy.

Like Alice in Wonderland, wasn't crazy, but like you, you answer storms coming. Um, And uh, if you wanna see a movie that's about being worried about your kids, eating you tying you to a bed uh, that one, goodnight mommy, also German. And if you wanted, you know, Have a fun cult type experience play cult to the lamb which is a new game for many consoles.

[00:42:56] Jeremy: Yeah. I, I haven't played cult to the lamb yet, but it's been lighting up my timeline on Twitter. So, I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

[00:43:03] Ben: Yes. Jeremy, your recommendation drum roll.

[00:43:06] Jeremy: Uh, So I've got two on the part of uh, animation involving Weird, cardboard and objects and shit like that.

Uh, If you haven't seen Dave made a maze, which I think I've recommended on here before it is fantastic. I think it's probably still on shutter as well as a lot of other stuff. It's about a guy who's dealing with an incredible depression and starts making a maze in his house uh, well, his girlfriend is on vacation and she comes home to find that he has been lost in this giant maze and a group of his friends go into to try and find him and get him out of the uh, giant cardboard maze, which has come to life and trapped him inside of it.

If you wanna talk about something that's about It's about depression and about you know, dealing with mental health. Boy, that's a good one. And on the other front of, of something that's a little more fairytale like, and does incredible things with animation. You haven't seen Wolf walkers, which is an apple TV, original animated movie.

It's beautiful. It is done in a very like handmade style. It's uh, really incredible to watch and really uh, a really good animated film. That's not in sort of the traditional Disney mold and, and production process. So I, I think got overlooked by some people, but it did get nominated for for an Oscar a few years back.

And it was really incredible.

[00:44:19] Emily: That's a cartoon saloon baby.

[00:44:22] Ben: So yes, I do apologize listeners uh, definitely a shorter episode this week. Man, this movie was short and weird and there wasn't a ton of plot to talk about it just it's really art scene weird. And it's got super intense vibes and again, a stunning artistic achievement, but not, not the most concerned with storytelling.

[00:44:46] Emily: I mean, yeah. It-

[00:44:47] Ben: yes, it has a lot to say it's still, it's got a lot going on. I don't mean to not say it doesn't have stuff going on.

[00:44:53] Emily: Well, it has a lot going on's

[00:44:54] Ben: Nazis

[00:44:55] Emily: visually.

[00:44:57] Jeremy: The story creepy factor too.

[00:44:59] Ben: Yeah. Big creepy, big creepy pig people and creepy Nazis who turn the pig people into trees. Why did they turn into trees?

[00:45:07] Emily: Because she offers the little animals to the trees to get fruit.

[00:45:11] Ben: Ah, it all comes full circle. Okay. I get that now. Thank you.

[00:45:15] Emily: So, so to-.

[00:45:16] Ben: That's legit.

[00:45:17] Emily: In conclusion: racism bad. Dissociation can be rough.

[00:45:22] Jeremy: Leave the pigs alone.

[00:45:23] Emily: Leave the pigs alone. Let the pigs be pigs. Let people be people, you know?

Yeah.

[00:45:27] Jeremy: Yeah. Uh, So that's a, that's a great place to wrap up. Uh, You can find all this online. Emily @megamoth.

[00:45:35] Ben: Is it? Is it a great place to wrap up?

[00:45:37] Jeremy: Yeah, it's perfect. You can find Emily @megamoth on twitter and @mega_moth on instagram and at megamoth.net.

[00:45:43] Ben: Ben is on Twitter at BenTheKahn, and on their website@BenKahnComics.com, where you can pick up all their books, including Phoenix, rising and Renegade rule. And finally, for me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at J Rome five eight, and my website at jeremywhitley.com, where you can check out everything I write.

Emily, what's up.

[00:46:00] Emily: I just

wanted to say that this movie was so weird that in order to clean my palate, I watched Berserk the end.

[00:46:08] Ben: Ooh, good palette cleanser.

[00:46:10] Emily: No. If you're looking for holding horror movies to standards, they never agreed to this movie will offend, or these movies will offend you in so many ways. I still love them, but.

[00:46:19] Ben: Butberserk more than anything else did not ask to be held to our standards, our political standards.

[00:46:24] Emily: Justice for For Caska, that's all I'm saying.

[00:46:26] Ben: Oh, isn't that the plot of? Isn't that the plot- trying to get justice for Caska?

[00:46:30] Emily: The story did her so dirty. Listen, anyway.

[00:46:35] Ben: I'm like, isn't that Guts's goal?

[00:46:37] Emily: Yes.

[00:46:38] Ben: I don't know. I haven't read or watched it yet. I just know it's real, real good, but also mad, fucked up.

[00:46:43] Emily: Mad, fucked up.

[00:46:44] Jeremy: Of course, guys, we would love to hear from you about this movie or whatever else. So find us on Twitter @ProgHorrorPod find us on our website at progressivelyhorrified. Transistor.fm, or just, you know, apologize to us for having watched this and the lasting mental trauma it's done to us.

Or, you know, we'll apologize to you. If, if you find yourself watching this and uh, Because you heard we were doing an episode about it. Uh it's it's a lot. Speaking of that, you know, even if we've, we've given you some sort of trauma here, definitely give us five stars on our podcast.

[00:47:16] Emily: Give our trauma five stars.

[00:47:18] Jeremy: Thanks to all of you for listening. Thanks to Emily and Ben as always for, for being here. And uh, we will see you again next week. Oh, wait until then stay horrified.

[00:47:28] Alicia: Progressively horrified as created by Jeremy Whitley and produced by Alicia Whitley. This episode The horror squad, Jeremy, Ben, and Emily, all opinions expressed by the commentators are solely their own and do not represent the intent or opinion of the filmmakers nor do they represent the employers, institutions, or publishers of the commentators. Our theme music is epic darkness by mario colo six. six. and was provided royalty free from pixabay and if you liked this episode Give us five stars give us five stars for our trauma you can also get in touch with us on twitter at Prague horror, pod or email@progressivelyhorrifiedatgmail.com. thanks for listening Bye.