the way pack
DOC WILL THROW YOU FOR A LUPINE… MISHA AND THE WOLVES TBC
OUT 3 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS
Sometimes a story is so astonishing it feels unbelievable,” says a contributor at the start of Sam Hobkinson’s intriguing documentary. Although it begins ordinarily enough, with talking heads introducing us to Misha Defonseca, a Belgian Holocaust survivor living in Millis, Massachusetts, we’re soon plunged into a tale that beggars belief. During World War 2, after her parents were deported by the Nazis, the seven-year-old Misha left her foster family and walked across Europe to find them.
Not only did this incredible journey take her across a conflict-stricken continent, she was adopted by a pack of wolves along the way. “With animals, I didn’t need any words,” she explains.
And it is words that prove treacherous, as Misha’s tale attracts the interest of a publisher, then Oprah, becoming an international sensation. To say more would be unfair, but the fact that all is not quite as it seems is
signalled early on by Hobkinson, who draws attention to the artifice of his retelling with cinematic inserts, an intrusive interviewer’s voice and the slap of the clapperboard.
Although the blaring music and breakneck pace sometimes overwhelm, they suggest a giddiness to get to the truth. After 93 gripping minutes of personal testimonies and plot twists, you’ll feel exactly the same. Matt Glasby