I think that the effectiveness of documentaries can be determined by the topic they take to begin with. Mostly. There are a few exceptions that can prove me wrong. 2008’s Man on Wire. Who knew that such beauty could come from following an average joe on his mission to tightrope walk across the twin towers in New York? His antics became our goal. Such few documentaries can do that, to convince us to listen to the part of the world we’ve been passing over for so long.
Crystal Moselle’s new documentary The Wolfpack is no doubt moving. In short, swift doses, we get to know the subjects, well. I’m sure many people will watch the film and care about them, very much. I know I did.
But watching this, I question what defines a documentary. Is it a true learning experience within the natural, Hollywood-independent world that uses the screen to layer information through its immediacy and perspective, or is it just a shared observation that we all see the same?
In any other movie, I’d call what The Wolfpack does dawdling. I thought that there would be more to it than the summary, but I drifted through not so much finding things as I did realizing the content I had previously known, this time with a little context. So, I guess to go into this film with as little information as possible would be the best, since I think the director appropriately sits on the hard-hitting topics. It’s not her fault that the emotions she describes can fit under such a small umbrella.
That said, should I tell you what the documentary is about? If I truly think you’ll enjoy it by not knowing about it, then I shouldn’t persist. But then again, now what?
Here’s what I’ll say. It takes place in modern New York City in the apartment building of a family. The parents have six boys and one girl, ranging from the ages of the mid-twenties to as young as fourteen. The film rarely leaves this tiny space that the children come to know as home. We get to know about them and what makes their family unique.
Even though there’s some quirky bits of humor in here, this isn’t a light subject. It’s probably better than whatever you’re thinking, but worse than nothing. Let’s say a substitute teacher would show it in class to make a very eery lesson.
In a nutshell, though, there’s just a lot of scraping the surface. Of course, it’s a family. Snooping around too much would be intrusive, and Moselle correctly stays away from these habits as a person. But for the liberties she has been given by these subjects, the question is almost always “What happened?” when it should be “How did you feel?” The movie, much like the environment it shares with us, feels very tight.
