'The Wolf House' directors Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña mix media, styles and story worlds for an outwardly whimsical exercise that turns increasingly sober.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
'Donkey Princess' Courtesy by Bendita Film Sales Chilean duo Cristobal León and Joaquín Cociña made a dream nightmare debut with “The Wolf House,” a stop-motion fantasy that turned heads both with its wholly original design — incorporating claymation, puppetry and papier-mâché to palpably handmade but immersively surreal effect — and its trajectory from a seemingly juvenile storybook premise to very grownup recesses of horror and trauma. Their 2024 follow-up “The Hyperboreans” captured fewer imaginations with its dense, narratively abstruse melange of history, psychology and political theory, but still dazzled with technique, adding live-action cinematography to the filmmakers’ varied visual quiltwork. In their beguiling third feature, “Donkey Princess,” León and Cociña split the difference between their first two, continuing their singular exploration of hybrid live-action cinema, but fruitfully returning to adult fairytale terrain.
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