I must launch one of my rants about film titles translations. Usually my complains are about translating English titles to Hebrew or my mother-tongue Romanian – now it’s about the reverse translation. This film is titled in Hebrew ‘Who’s afraid of the Big Wolf’ which is obviously a reference to Edward Albee’s play. Why on Earth (or in the Negev Desert) would this reference to the title of a well known play written in English be dropped when translating the title of the film from Hebrew to English? Luckily this is one of the few mistakes made by the creators of this interesting film, a good exercise in the genre of horror which slowly gathers mass and quality in the Israeli cinema.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2309224/
The story of the film directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado could have been a thriller as it is built upon a police case, but it’s a case we learn almost nothing about. There is a police file in the film which ends by being used for very different purposes than intended, but we really do not know on what the suspicions on evil crimes of pedophilia and murder are based, on what grounds the main suspect, a high-school teacher is arrested, freed, kidnapped and eventually punished. More than a thriller this film is closer to the horror genre and asks in an implicit manner some tough questions about truth and guilt, about punishment and who has the right to apply it, about morality in the cases when justice cannot be made. Fans of horror should by no means be discouraged as all these (important) message are implicit and they are served in ‘Big Bad Wolves’ with a copious portion of their preferred stuff which seems to have been the first priority of the directors (who also wrote the script).
(video source Film Festivals and Indie Films)
The team of actors includes a few faces who are well-known to Israeli audiences and I was almost envying the foreign audiences for whom splendid actors like Guy Adler, Lior Ashkenazi, Dvir Benedek, or Doval’e Glickman are new. They all do good jobs. The musical score is well fit, in sync with the action in many moments, or providing the connection with the universe of childhood and fairy tales which is the emotional counterpoint of the whole story in other. Cinematography tries and succeeds a few good things, but falls into routine in the basement and night scenes which occupy much of the story, and editing could have been a little more alert for my taste. Overall I liked this film, and I believe it has chances for a good run among the fans of the genre and not only among them.