WOLFKIN

Ah, if only she had said no to that wild exchange of bodily fluids in the idyllic countryside with that aristocratic rebel Patrick… Ten years later, Elaine’s a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Desperately single and as broke as Woody at the end of TOY STORY 4, every day is a struggle for her and her boy Martin. But when the latter starts clawing and gnawing at his classmates, she breaks down. On an impulse she travels with her son to the luxuriant forests of Luxembourg, where the parents of Patrick live. Elaine doesn’t even know why she’s going. To finally present Martin to Grandma and Grandpa? Because of their seemingly infinite amounts of money? Because she’s utterly lost? Whatever’s the case, not only are the grandparents overjoyed to finally meet their heir, they seem to know all about the boy’s uncontrollable urge to chew on his peers. Yup, lil’ Martin is definitely the spitting image of his dad… We never stop repeating it, the fantastic genre is the ideal filter to treat all contemporary topics. Jacques Molitor completely got that with WOLFKIN, in which he uses the genre prism to question family ties, the reactionary hypocrisy inherent in the aristocracy and the loss of identity through the figure of a monster that is almost akin to Rousseau’s philosophy of the “noble savage”. An incredibly rich gothic tale, as elegant as it is disturbing, and yet further proof that Belgian co-production of genre films is in excellent shape!