Big Bad Wolves,
Directed by Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Starring: Guy Adler, Lior Ashkenazi, Dvir Benedek

Here’s a rather unusual and utterly compelling film from Israel which came my way courtesy of the folks behind the UK Jewish Film Festival (, which runs from 30th October to the 17th November, Big Bad Wolves screens there on November 14th): Big Bad Wolves. Directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado it has been doing the film festival circuit, where it has been picking up some good word of mouth, not least from a certain Quentin Tarantino. Partaking of black comedy, crime and horror and with a central premise that revolves around the murder of a child I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this film at all – as it turned out I sat glued to the screen throughout.

The film starts with an almost idyllic scene of childhood play, a group of kids having fun together, playing hide and seek in the woods, two young girls happily running around looking for a spot to conceal themselves while their friend counts down to his search. It should be a happy scene, but despite the playful children there is a shadow looming even in these opening few minutes, from the ominous music to other signifiers – the little girl in red skipping through the woods instantly hints at not just a fairy tale edge, but the darker version of the old fairy tales, the type which were much nastier, murkier and often bloodier, before they were cleaned up to become the tales we tell children today. This dark fairy tale vibe continues when the children think they have found their young friend’s hiding place, but all they find is a single red shoe – a disturbing play on the ruby red slipper – which belonged to her; the girl in the red dress is gone…

This opening credits sequence is the trigger for the later events, with a team of Israeli detectives trailing the only suspect. There is no proof and the only circumstantial evidence is one child who thinks they saw a man matching this suspect’s description near the area. But, as some detectives do, our cops have decided already, with no evidence, that this man – a local teacher, as it turns out – is guilty, and they are going to get a confession out of him, even if they have to beat it out of him. However, they are not aware a kid has seen them dragging the teacher into an abandoned building and is covertly filming this abuse, which finds its way onto the internet in short order. The detective, Miki, who decided on this course of action is busted, not just for his abuse of power, but because their heavy-handed actions mean that the suspect – their only suspect – has to be released and left alone. Shortly after this the girl’s body is found – minus her head – and Miki is, understandably, kicked off the force.

This does not stop Miki though – he is still convinced the quiet teacher is his man. Word gets out about the suspicions – still with no proof – and he is suspended from his school work, his reputation ruined through only hearsay. Miki begins to tail him on his own time, planning to kidnap his suspect, take him to a remote location and torture the confession he desires from him. What he doesn’t realise is that at the same time Tsvika is following them both – the father of the murdered girl, with an agenda of his own, and now he has both the teacher and Miki in his sights with a cold, implacable determination to do what he thinks he has the right to do…

I’m not going to blow any of this hugely compelling and incredibly tense film for you by risking any possible spoilers. Suffice to say what follows is bloody, painful and excruciating. With no actual proof, just a child’s possible description of someone who passed by the area, actions are set in motion, judgements are made based on anger and revenge rather than rational thought, let alone due process of law. And the viewer is almost complicit in this, the film-makers cleverly playing on competing and contrasting emotions on the part of the audience. On the one hand we’re utterly horrified at the thought of using torture on someone, especially when that person may well be innocent and have no confession to make. But at the same time if this man has committed the abuse then slow murder of a child there is a part of the audience that also wants to see him suffer and pay for his crimes. And since we don’t know for a long time which side of the innocent-guilty divide our little teacher stands on this creates an excruciating emotional tension which leave you totally immersed in the story.

The film leavens these dark moments with a black sense of humour which means that despite the violence and the heavy duty emotional subject matter there are lighter moments and scenes to offer some relief. There are also, like any good fairy tale, layers of metaphor layered through the story. On the simplest level there is the obvious dichotomy between straight out vengeance and the civil rule of law which all societies have to live by or else descend into the chaos of blood-grudges and lynchings. We may want the bad guy – assuming he is the bad guy – to pay, but we know it has to be by the book, no matter how much we may want to give in to the animal urge to simply hurt back (and what if we are wrong? That’s why we need courts, evidence, trials). Behind this you could also read some of these events for a commentary on the post-9/11 world, where even supposedly civil, law-abiding democracies have secretly reverted to the vile practice of torture to extract confessions, or even on the relationship between Israelis and Arabs and how easily those in power can abuse that power over others (always in the name of the greater good, of course, they still see themselves as the ‘good guys’). This is reinforced by Tsvika relocating to a remote home in a mostly Arab area, secluded, where he can plan to carry out his ‘interrogation’ without anyone nearby hearing the screams…

It’s a hugely satisfying and gripping film, twisting the audience emotionally so they find themselves supporting both sides at differing points in the film, a real morality morass with no clear totally good or bad characters or motivations (the murdered girl’s father Tsvika acts with such quiet restraint rather than anger and shouting that he comes across as more terrifying than the supposed murderer in many scenes). The murders themselves happen off-screen, instead we get a description of them during the attempts to force a confession, and somehow this is even more horrifying, getting under the viewer’s skin more than a straight visualistion of the deaths may have done. Big Bad Wolves is stylish, satisfying, utterly compelling and it puts the audience through the emotional wringer. Seriously recommended.

This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog