 Welcome back to Life Lessons in Film. Hi. Today we're going to be making Sense of Life through the Wolfpack. Yeah. It's a documentary in 2015. Yeah. First documentary we're covering. Recovering, which we will be covering. Which we will. Documentaries too. Okay, you can promise, we can promise you that. So it's about, it is a true story. Yep. As our, you know, hopefully most documentaries want. A good documentary. Yeah. That is the point. Yeah, that's the point. Right? And so you have a family of nine, a dad, mom, and seven brothers, and one sister. Just for reference, we talked about the family of nine. So you have the dad, Oscar, Angulo, and then you have the mom, Suzanne, then the brothers, the siblings, Mukunda, Narayana, Jagadisa, Vishnu, Krishna, Govinda, Bhagavan. And yeah. So that's the family. And the dad has trapped this entire family in a New York City apartment where basically their whole lives, right? Like it's like 14 years until one of them basically breaks out and then it's just, you know, release the water or release the river type of situation. Watch till the end. Yes. To see where these people and where this whole family ends up. Yeah. And so they don't work, right? So the dad has the family trapped in there on philosophical grounds. He feels the world is unsafe. And he comes from a, I'm not sure which country he was from, but South America. Yeah. I believe it's a South American country. That's how him and the wife meet. She was traveling. She grew up in a very Midwestern. Yeah, Midwestern type setting, lots of trees, lots of country, right? Like she grew up in God's country and was hoping for that. And so she was enamored by this man that she meets as she's traveling across South America. And you know, they hit it off and they go back to America. They live in New York with the view to save up and move to Scandinavia, but that never happens. And so they end up living in New York. But the dad with this obsession to have their kids be as totally clean as possible decides, I'm going to lock these kids in this apartment. I'm going to, we're all going to be living in this apartment. Yeah. And he's the only one who has the key to the apartment. And he's the only one who goes out to get food. They compare it to being in a prison. We were in a prison. Yeah. In a night ourselves would lock up. Even in the morning. Yes I so. Yeah. So they said some years they never left the apartment. Yeah. So they leave obviously until the point he escapes when they are leaving. Yeah. It's like up to two times a year or something like that. Yeah. And there are years where they literally just don't leave the apartment and it's always with the parents or the dad supervising them outside. They're not allowed to talk to people. They're just quiet. Yeah. And so they don't really have any kind of engagement with the outside world. Their source of income is the mom homeschools them. Yeah. She gets that she gets an income and that's how basically they're living off of her. As of course the dad does not believe in work. Right. Which is I guess probably why they never made enough to go to Scandinavia. That was a bit of a hole in his plan. Yeah. There are lots of holes in this guy's plan. Right. And so ultimately this one of the sons Mokunda when the dad has gone grocery shopping which usually takes three hours he decides to break out and he does and then he gets I think that's when he because he was dressed very menacingly in one of the costumes. Yeah. He got arrested by the cops and they took him back and then since then you know then everyone was shocked of course. The fact that they went from never being outside to being arrested. Yeah. But that is kind of what then encouraged the rest of the kids to also want to explore and at that point then there was no going back. The genie was out of the bottle. Yeah. It follows that family I guess later on when at that point they were already getting more comfortable going outside. So they interview everybody except really the youngest daughter didn't seem like they I'm assuming they just didn't really get any footage of her talking. She was probably very shy the way that all the sons were for the longest time. Yeah. Which is one of the things the son said. They didn't talk about where he's like if you had met us a few years earlier you wouldn't have got any. A year earlier. A year earlier we wouldn't have been saying anything to you. We would have just been zombies. So they started to at least be more comfortable with outsiders talking and engaging with people you know. But yeah it's and then that's the documentaries about that family and just how the family but the kids were raised by movies because they had no other outside interaction or influence. So a lot of the movie is the sons the six of them the wolf pack. I guess they either call themselves or that's what the documentary calls them. They had spent all their time making costumes out of yoga mats and cereal boxes making Batman costumes as and re-enacting all their favorite scenes from the movies. They had 5,000 movies VHS DVDs and that's what their lives were. Yeah and they would write the script like the entire script. Yeah and they would memorize it and re-enact it. Yeah and then that's what they did. I actually grew up in a similar situation not nearly to that extent but homeschooled and basically our family was pretty was was quite anti-social. So in movies and TV was our way of learning about how the world worked and how people were and that was our only reference point. So when we'd go out places anywhere theme park, Disney world, everything we would stay together. We wouldn't really interact too too too much. I guess I was the chatty one. I would talk to waitresses and stuff and but for the most part we would just be making references to each other and just saying like oh doesn't that remind you of this movie? Doesn't that remind you of this that you know that's how we talk? Yeah. And so yeah I can relate a lot to this. Which is what they do as well. That's what they do and they go outside and everything is related to that they can only see their filters and lenses are through movies that they that's how they refer to everything. The sons at this point they've all started trying to go outside and rebel against their dad's tyrannical way of keeping the family you know in check and so when they interact there's there's very little all the sons are very resentful of the father at this point. I think they probably now start to see and maybe before then they started to feel like they were being treated mistreated. I mean they that apparently he at times would be abusive towards the mother which they're all very protective of. Yeah and it turns out that he's basically it seems like he's living with alcohol addiction too. Yeah yeah. So that of course is something that everyone's going to pick up on where the one guy said that he felt when he struggles to even interact or look at his father because he just feels like everything about his father his essence everything surrounding him is just wrong can't even really explain it but it's just you know and it's probably he probably is picking up just the disease of alcoholism the sickness so much internal like pain and and you know self-hatred and and hurt and pain directed towards what the father caused on him on them as a family and but it's it's interesting though you get the father when they do interview him the few times in his mind I think he does realize he screwed up to a degree but he also doesn't take a lot of the blame either he's like well at this point it's on the kids to kind of make their way and and I thought it interesting when you're saying I wanted to he finds the outside world sick and decadent and degrading right which sure maybe he's got some points there but his idea is then to take them so far out of that that they can really understand like become who they are truly and not be influenced by society the thing is you're always going to be influenced by something I remember watching it now this time because the second time I've seen it and thinking you know for when people say that when they say we want you to be allowed to because the mother said she went to the public school system and she found she got a lot of negative socialization probably bullying and probably just you know bad conformist kind of elements and then pressures social pressures but the thing is you're still going to get negative socialization by being completely cut off from other people so it's not you can never be to become your true self I think just means spending time like living life and always reflecting on what do I like keeping a record a tab I think on your yourself like but you to be your true self is always going to be changing so there is no I think I think some people have this sometimes where it's like there's the external world that puts that affects you and makes you conform or makes you change who you truly are but your true self isn't just this this pure thing that I think gets contaminated it's the word that the father uses he didn't want his kids to be contaminated but he's contaminating them by treating them like prison inmates it's a different kind of contamination you know so there's always going to be effects and contamination on people you know they're so it's just it's kind of what what kind of contamination do you want to contaminate people with he does say like we're all circumstances of life and victims of circumstances and the person interviewing him asks don't you feel like you should ask for forgiveness from your kids there's a mild acknowledgement of that what he he's done is wrong he says I of course I didn't want them to grow up like this and that's what he talks about the Scandinavia things like I didn't want them to grow up this way and I feel sad that that this happened you know like there is never any deep-seated connection to this this that happened as being him who actually made this thing that happened happened and I don't think it's because he doesn't believe that he did anything wrong but I think it's because there's a deep shame and there are lots of things that happen in the way that he interacts with the kids that you can see that he is very ashamed of it right I don't want to be existing with certain people and so I'm going to just like be in the house right like that is a form of contamination by the world because why would you allow other people to affect your well-being and your family's well-being to that extent and number two he's affected by the world for the fact that he still loves music like he's like I don't want you go I don't want to work I don't want you to go outside but we love music here he has yeah kids yeah learn um watch all these you know artists and then they all learn how to play music instruments and he also says but it would be okay if you guys became artists yeah you became artists and yes you can go out there yeah in the world and you guys could be musicians which is interesting because he feels like well if you guys got a record deal that's a way that you and you're like first of all that's still one of the also an incredibly exploitative industry just like any other so there's of all things yeah I think uh that's where it is just more of like a selfish like I really like music so you guys could do that and yeah that that's where you know I think again that's where you can develop these kind of subcultures or culture things where people have these blinders on where they see some issues with society that I think are are legitimate but then their way of their solution is just to kind of cause another unhealthy environment yeah you know they have 5000 movies in their home that he purchases for them yeah you're talking about not wanting to get your kids contaminated yeah yeah I mean yeah like the mom at one point says like too much of anything is bad it's like so the parents have some self-awareness of what they did to their kids but they they just both I kind of have this like just resigned to the fact that yeah well there's nothing we can do about it now even though there were years you only catch them at the tail end of you know where the kids start to actually want to live outside in the world um so you know how long what was going through their heads for the longest time when they were having their fourth kid fifth kid sixth kid and still just staying in the apartment and raising them on movies yeah whatever grounds this dad decides to lock his to imprison his family into this apartment they are certainly not altruistic you see really that they stem from his own personal fear and insecurities yeah one of the things that we we get we get from the mom she says that when after makunda escapes right and then the rest of the of the sons basically start becoming very hard to manipulate which is something that the dad does and he says he says that he's like one thing I'm really good at is influencing people and he really did he was manipulating these people it was a proper a proper prison ward you know like these kids could not even um leave the room until he said it's okay you can get off of that couch and and go wherever else right when makuta finally leaves and the the rest of the kids start they stop being afraid of him the mom says that you know oscar the dad always knew that this would happen but she says he felt that it wasn't the time you know and he said that he felt like it should have happened later when everyone was ready basically what that means is when he was ready when he wanted it which obviously would have never happened ultimately because he's so avoided of his reality of himself and why and the choices the toxic choices he's making the whole thing has nothing to do with concern for the family it is more for himself what the mom says I like it she's like if when things are happening they are meant to happen at that time there was no the kids are gonna you know there's a specific time there's a right time for the kids to go up if they're breaking out of the house and you know deciding that they're not going to listen to you anymore it means it's time they want to be adult and that they're ready and of course he didn't like that he didn't like not having control anymore also the kids were more openly expressing their resentment towards him you could see you know like in the videos the older videos when they were still locked in there you could see that they they had this these resentments the dad would kiss them on the lips and they wouldn't like and they wouldn't like it or they would hug their mom and just walk by their dad yeah yeah when they go out that one time to the apple orchard the husband is keeps trying to pull the wife away from the wife just eventually like no I want to hang we've been avoiding the kids the whole day yeah I want to see what they're doing and spend time with them and then he walks away it's an interesting document just in terms of people's perspectives and the stories they tell themselves to justify things you know Oscar in his mind of course feels like still to avoid all that shame and because he just doesn't want to face up to all the stuff he caused the pain he caused his family he doesn't want to have that talk with them which he needs to do otherwise he's gonna just keep drinking and not be able to really get over it but in his mind he's like oh well it's too late now so what's done is done yeah that's how a lot of people deal with that stuff without actually dealing with it so again it's like how much do you try to avoid things that you think are negative in the culture versus knowing that you need to have some assimilation some understanding and ability to navigate it yeah and that's the thing that one of the kids talks about the resentment that he has towards his dad man this movie was so sad because he says you know my greatest fear is not being able to make it out there because I grew up in here and I never gained the tools to actually be able to make it out there you know and this is true the reality is you are living in the world you are living in this place that you think that you don't like and you're not giving your kids the resilience that they need to be able to make it so that whatever issue there are whatever hardships there are they can get past them relatively okay if you're having kids know then that they are going to go through the same hardship the same heartbreak yeah same everything that everyone else goes through yeah the best thing you can do I think as a parent instead of trying to cocoon your kids is to have an open relationship enough that your kids will come to you when things are happening and then they can you well you basically help them dissect the situation and how to move forward you give them that you know resilience that they need and understanding that everybody goes through this it's a tough thing you just have to learn how to you know to exist in the world with this stuff yeah these these situations are always very tricky when you have a mother who's also being abused and locked in right because at the end of the day as children who are you depending on you're depending on both mom and dad and one would hope that when dad is messing up mom swoops in and and saves the day or when one of the parent or when mom's messes up dad comes in and saves the day right because both of you as parents have a mutual responsibility to take care of your kids so I was thinking I was reflecting on how I felt about the mother you know because I think obviously I know situations of abuse and manipulation can really get to that point where you're so weak even if you are the parent one of the the other the good parent wanting better for your kids you get so crippled psychologically mentally in all the different ways by this partner the more domineering partner who doesn't give you the opportunity to to try and save your kids and so then you're just forced to kind of watch it happen yeah and I one of the kids goes to work right and he's asking have you guys seen this movie if you guys are seeing this movie and you're just thinking oh man you know this kid like his reference points are movies yeah goes from like who's watching the thrones great breaking bad like they're just gonna rhyme off everything yeah and that's basically it like what else are you gonna talk about right and he's trying yeah he is trying and that's great yeah and I'm hoping that he'll figure out okay we have to move past just talking about movies what else can we can we talk about yeah but all of them have a lot to to really adjust to even just adjusting to the situation changing even if it is a healthier situation you still have to get used to that fact yeah because there is still that yeah it was a prison but we know that environment exactly new thing yeah that still takes getting used to yeah it's scary too in some way yeah it's absolutely scary it's scarier because when you're growing up right in the world it's so much easier to adjust to things because you have your parents but your if your parents locked you into into an apartment you're facing the world on your own and figuring you're you have to become your own parent first right and that's really hard the one guy you know he just like naturally goes into these different accents as if he almost doesn't really have his own voice which again you know I can I can relate to where when you watch in the day and weeks and months you watch all these different movies with all these different voices and characters and and accents and everything and you imitate them that's what kids do then yeah at times you do start to feel like what is my actual voice how do I actually talk if you do come from that kind of situation you aren't you don't you're not allowed to express your feelings whatsoever your feelings in that home don't matter yeah and that's just the the reality and so you're just kind of like numb the whole time yeah they're walking outside and they're talking like you know uh someone from the godfather or yeah you know gangsters gangsters pulp fiction yeah a lot of yeah because that's either either they do that as a coping thing to want to make them less scared by going outside so they can be like I'm going to be like that badass from that from pulp fiction or something um or they just do that because that's what they do all the time around each other right so that that's what they're comfortable doing traumatized people shut down emotionally that's just easy go to way from avoiding the pain the one brother I forget which one wants to put on a make a movie because you know that's what wants the group around that so his movie is that it's this person looking through the window which is probably all they could do when they were shut up in their apartment and he imagines all these emotions going by and he gets to kind of experience them that way as he does watching a movie which is what he does he experiences all these people acting out these emotions but in real life they were so they weren't allowed to ever be there so they just only get to experience it that second hand or but again there's still that you can't kill that need for humans to in some way experience emotions and I think a lot of people are attracted to movies with a lot of emotion that they themselves kind of suppress have noticed you know I feel like that that's a way that they can still kind of experience emotion without doing it themselves you know but there is just that fact that humans need to be emotional yeah to survive you know thank you for watching and hopefully if you've seen this yeah comment yeah let us know share your thoughts and our thoughts yeah and yeah yeah until next time though all right that's a wrap we need to get one of those quicker things I wonder if you can just buy those things I know I know I know it's a marker but until next time that's a wrap