Nicolette Krebitz’ new film WILD is one of the bravest German films in recent years, a film that smells of animals and freedom and is often very funny to boot. A film that delivers everything a cineaste heart would want: images that have never been seen before, a biting vision of the world, great actors, and stellar punchlines. The future cult film of a generation. A film that will remain just as good in 40 or 50 years and an example of the filmic depiction of society in the 10s as well as a new female cinema which embodies desires and dreams in the unrestrained way only men in westerns and gangster films were once allowed to have.

Nicolette Krebitz goes full tilt ahead with WILD. Ania (Lilith Stangenberg) has a dull job as an IT administrator in an ad agency. When her boss Boris throws an object through a glass panel, she stands up and goes to the coffee machine to get some coffee for him. Boris praises her for her invisibility: “you never disturbed me.” The self-loathing boss sees it as a compliment. Ania will later shit on his desk with resolve.

Ania starts to have an addictive relationship to fresh air: she opens every window. She sees a wolf in the park next to her housing complex. Whether the wolf is just a vision or a real wild animal searching for food remains unclear at first. Ania researches how to capture wolves, makes a textile with the help of a coworker that will serve as a trap, drugs the animal, and locks it in a room in her bland apartment. Ania buys the wolf treats, expensive meat, and a cute and tasty bunny. The relationship between the woman and the wolf gets increasingly more intimate though Ania doesn’t domesticate the wolf, it is rather the wolf who makes her wilder.

Unlike the “animals and us” films like LIFE OF PI and PLANET OF THE APES, this wolf is not made from pixels or motion capture technology, it’s a real wolf. Krebitz worked together with the Hungarian animal trainer Zoltan Horkai and filmed the movie with two wolves who were always separated from their pack for a short amount of time. You can tell it was dangerous. The fantastic and amazingly relaxed Lilith Stangenberg risked a lot and the real danger leaves its imprint on the film.

Krebitz believes her film is optimistic, a positive film that shows you can make it. That seems to be linked more to her work as a filmmaker than the hero’s attempts to free herself. The woman’s fantasy may be wild and sexy, but it leads to solitude in the end which doesn’t appear to be all that wild. At least Ania is smiling. Something has been achieved, but is it more than a big “fuck you all?” Maybe that’s just how it begins.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy