Documentary’s shut-ins raise unanswered questions

The six Angulo brothers spent most of their teen years in a crowded apartment in a New York housing project. They didn’t merely live there; they lived there. That is, their strict father refused to allow them to leave those few rooms. Once or twice a year, he relented, but, otherwise, the family was almost completely insular. (Mom dealt with the groceries and pretty much every other practical aspect of their existence.)

She also home-schooled them ... quite well, as it turns out. They are not feral ... monsters. They are extremely articulate and — as far as we can tell — better educated than many of their contemporaries in public schools.

But Dad — who grew up in Peru — considered New York to be terrifying, a hostile environment to be avoided as much as possible. Many parents overprotect their kids. But Oscar Angulo took it to the extreme, trying to shield them by making them effectively prisoners. Explaining his restrictiveness, he says, “I wanted them to be free” at one point, apparently not realizing the crushing irony of his statement.

The Angulos are not the first family to be confined to their homes. If Gothic novels are to be trusted, every third manor house in the 19th century had someone locked in the attic. But two things distinguish the Angulos’ situation. One, of course, is location: Their home is in New York, not some isolated outpost on a moor. The other is that Dad turns out to be a film buff, with thousands of videos, which provide the boys with their primary notions of the world.

It’s not merely that they watch them: They also transcribe them and then restage them within their limited space, making their own props and costumes. At the film’s opening, we get a glimpse of their “Reservoir Dogs.” Needless to say, neither technique nor performance level poses any threat to the real item, but, under the circumstances, it’s impressive for its resourcefulness, if nothing else.

One of the prime qualities for a documentarian is the ability to recognize a compelling subject. From that angle, Crystal Moselle, the maker of “Wolfpack,” deserves praise. (On the other hand, who could run into the Angulos and not see the situation’s cinematic potential?)

Having said that, the execution doesn’t live up to the expectation. The movie is assembled in a patchy way, interpolating home movie clips from various periods. It’s not always easy to figure out the “when,” nor is it possible over the course of the film to keep track of which brother is which. They look a lot alike, and the shifting ages don’t help.

To be fair, the Angulos are opening their lives up for public display — which means that a certain level of discretion is needed. The youngest child — the only girl among the offspring — could not possibly give informed consent and hence is seen only occasionally in the background.

At the same time, this discretion may also explain why the film is often frustrating. Some important-sounding aspects of the family’s life are conspicuous by their absence. In one particularly haunting scene, one of the older boys (in his early 20s) refers to “certain things that can’t be forgiven.” The camera holds on him while he declines to elaborate. Moselle exposes much about this unusual situation to us; but it’s clear that there’s even more that she shies away from.
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).