Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie Review

Huffing and Puffing . . . and Breaking Your Fingers

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 20, 2014

The writing/directing team of Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado first drew attention with their 2010 debut Rabies (or Kalevet), which is generally described as Israel's first horror film. Their sophomore feature, Big Bad Wolves, is a thriller with darkly comic overtones about a teacher suspected of being a pedophile serial killer who becomes the target of a renegade cop and a grieving father willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain a confession. "Maniacs are only afraid of other maniacs", says the father, and thus he has transformed himself into his enemy. Still, he will interrupt a brutal interrogation to take a call from his mother. Otherwise, he explains, she worries about him.

Big Bad Wolves premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, then opened in Israel later that year and in the U.S. the following January. The film got a PR boost when Quentin Tarantino declared it his favorite film of 2013. The compliment was especially meaningful, because Keshales and Papushado have acknowledged Tarantino's work as a major influence, along with that of Sergio Leone (specifically, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), Kim Jee-woon's I Saw the Devil and the Coen Brothers. Still, the young writer/directors have added something of their own to the mix, not only in their selection of elements but also in a distinctively deadpan humor that sneaks into the most horrific events at the least likely moments. One of the most diabolical features of Big Bad Wolves is how its creators imprint its grisliest scenes on the memory by making you laugh as you're cringing, even while you feel guilty about it.

The film's title sequence is an elegant tour de force, as three children play hide-and-seek in stately slow motion, accompanied by a foreboding symphonic score. One of them, a little girl, disappears. As we shortly learn, she is not the first such victim.

For reasons that are never explained (or, if they are, the English subtitles do not include the explanation), the police have identified a teacher named Dror (Rotem Keinan) as the prime suspect. Frustrated by the lack of evidence, the detective in charge of the case, Micki (Lior Ashkenazi), has two of his cops, Eli and Shauli (Guy Adler and Gur Bentwich) haul Dror into an abandoned building, where they attempt to beat a confession out of him, but Dror maintains his innocence. Another detective, Rami (Menashe Noy), objects to Micki's tactics, and his objections are vindicated when a video of Dror's "interrogation" surfaces on YouTube. Micki, who had already been taken off the case by the police chief, Tsvika (Dvir Benedek), is suspended from the force.

The police have had to release Dror, with an apology, but the cloud of suspicion hanging over him has prompted the principal of his school to place him on involuntary leave. Shortly after, the body of the little girl who disappeared during the film's opening has been found, bearing marks of unspeakable abuse. The body is also incomplete, which means that under Jewish law she cannot be properly buried. The killer has thereby ensured that her family's suffering will continue indefinitely. (The sequence in which the body is discovered is a model of restraint. Keshales and Papushado show just enough to let the viewer's imagination fill in much worse.)

Micki does not take his suspension lightly. Still certain that Dror is the killer, he prepares to extract a confession by force. But Micki is unaware that he has competition. The father of one of the victims, Gidi (Tzahi Grad), has been making preparations of such care and detail that they make Micki's look like an amateur's. Gidi has hired a real estate agent (Nati Kluger) to locate an isolated house with a large basement in a district surrounded by Arab villages. He has a credible cover story about needing a quiet place to write. He has gathered restraints and special "tools". And he has been stalking Dror for a long time.

With Micki and Gidi on a collision course, nothing about the interrogation of Dror goes as planned. For one thing, the two men have different goals: Micki is seeking truth, whereas Gidi wants vengeance. And the two interrogators bring different standards to their task. Despite Micki's poor reputation on the force, he still has a cop's mentality. He can't stop trying to separate liars from truth-tellers, and as Dror continues to maintain his innocence through increasingly grim forms of torment, Micki begins to question his initial certainty. Gidi, by contrast, never waivers. He maintains a sociopath's detachment from any human feeling for the man strapped to a chair in his basement, although he is perfectly capable of appearing normal in everyday life, as with his real estate agent or the young Arab (Kais Nashif) who rides by and bums a cigarette. Eventually you start wondering who exactly is the "wolf" in this group.

One thing that Micki and Gidi do have in common is family. In Micki's case, it's an ex-wife and daughter; in Gidi's, it's a doting mother and father (the latter played by veteran Israeli actor Doval'e Glickman). These connections result in some of the film's most memorable moments, comedic and otherwise. Rest assured that, by the end, all will be revealed—but nothing will be explained.

Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cinematographer Giora Bejach (Lebanon) shot Big Bad Wolves with the Arri Alexa. Bejach has said that he and his directors made a conscious decision to use wide lenses, which they felt were better suited to both comedy and horror. He was also instructed not to use any yellow (which the directors found too "cheerful") and to minimize the use of red, so that it would have greater impact when it appeared.

With the film's post-production completed on a digital intermediate, Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has presumably been sourced from digital files, and in general it looks superb. Except for a very occasional aliasing artifact on a horizontal or vertical edge (the result, I suspect, of DI processed at 2K), the image is sharp, noiseless and free of distortion. Black levels and contrast are appropriate, but the combination of the wide lenses and the muted palette produces a somewhat flattened image, without appreciable depth. As the DP's comments indicate, however, this is precisely what was intended. One or more of the characters in Big Bad Wolves may be sadistic, but its makers are not. Why would they want to give viewers the sense of being "inside" images of flesh being mangled and bone broken?

The memorable opening sequence was shot at 120 fps for projection at 24 fps; it also features key appearances of the color red. If there is a sequence that reveals the quality of this Blu-ray image, this is it, because the opening is purposely designed to draw the viewer into the world of the film and establish the mood.

Magnolia has mastered Big Bad Wolves with its customary generous bandwidth, which measures out at an average of 33.99 Mbps. No one need worry about compression errors.

Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The most prominent element on the soundtrack for Big Bad Wolves (presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1) is the extraordinary orchestral score by London-based Israeli composer Frank Ilfman. Ilfman is a professed admirer of classical Hollywood composers and particularly of Bernard Herrmann's scores for Alfred Hitchcock, which is precisely what Keshales and Papushado requested both for their grand "fairy tale" opening and for later scenes when the score has to mirror the characters' increasingly unhinged states of mind. The Blu-ray's track reproduces the London Metropolitan Orchestra's performance with richness, detail and a wide dynamic range that reaches deep into the lower frequencies to convey the sense of dark forces at work.

I cannot comment on the intelligibility of the Hebrew dialogue, but the speaking voices are distinctive and readily distinguishable. (An English-dubbed 5.1 track is also included.) The dialogue is never drowned out and remains anchored to the center. In the relatively few locations that present opportunities for interesting surround effects—one example is a greenhouse under construction where a large bank of lights is switched on—the rear channels are used effectively, but their primary function is to immerse the viewer in the orchestral score. Ilfman has specifically written the cues to go silent at key moments, and the sound mix's immersive quality makes the sudden silence all the more eerie.

Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of Big Bad Wolves (1080p; 1.78:1; 16:17): This brief but informative behind-the-scenes features interviews with the two writer/directors and the principal cast, all of whom are articulate and droll on the subject of the film's distinctive mix of horrific narrative and dark humor. Rotem Keinan is especially interesting on the challenges of playing Dror.



• AXS TV: A Look at Big Bad Wolves (1080i; 2.39:1; 2:57): This brief promotional spot expands the trailer with excerpts from the interviews included in the "Making of" listed above.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.39:1; 1:43): A well-constructed trailer that captures the film's unique mixture of unexpected comedy and stomach-churning violence.



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for The Last Days on Mars, Beyond Outrage, Here Comes the Devil and Journey to the West, as well as a promo for AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, the BD-Live feature provided access to trailers for additional Magnolia films.

Big Bad Wolves Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is difficult to say more about Big Bad Wolves without giving away too much of the plot. When you look at events after the dust has settled, the film raises troubling questions and leaves you with genuine riddles to ponder. The directors have suggested that the film is a kind of gleeful revenge on adults who tell frightening fairy tales to children. On that level alone, it succeeds brilliantly, and there's plenty more for viewers to discover. Highly recommended.