Wild

Nicolette Krebitz | Germany

long
97'
English subtitles

A mix of Little Red Riding Hood and Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, but for the 21st century. This time it’s our heroine Ania who catches the wolf, only to then start a sexual relationship with the beast. Who says fairy tales are for children?

In Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), the traumatised Carol locks herself in her apartment to hide away from a male dominated world. A dead rabbit – which was meant to be eaten – shows the passing of time: each consecutive day of Carol isolating herself from the outside world is shown in the slowly decaying carcass.

In Wild, her second feature film, Nicolette Krebitz explicitly refers to the Polanski classic. Her protagonist Ania also locks herself away in her apartment – including a dead rabbit – and she also wants to distance herself at first. Away from a world in which men rule the roost: she works as an IT specialist, but in reality she’s not much more than a glorified secretary for her boss Boris.

But Ania is a completely different character from Carol, not half as passive and helpless. From the moment she first sees a wolf in the park next to her downtown apartment, Ania finds a new purpose in her life. She catches the wolf, takes him home and starts a relationship with him that soon turns sexual.

Krebitz pushes the boundaries of what our society calls ‘sexually healthy’ and piles onto it, but she does make it understandable that Ania is enjoying this. Can she ever go back to her old life? Or will she give up everything for a new life with her new partner, in the wild?

Hugo Emmerzael (translation by Marjan Westbroek)