Instinct is Everything! Exclusive Interview with 'Wolf' Director and Writer Nathalie Biancheri Discusses the Power of Instinct and Trusting Your Audience
Instinct.
Instinct is an animalistic ability to act before you've even begun to process. It is a natural phenomenon that guides animals to survival. It is also the spirit with which writer and director Nathalie Biancheri created her new, captivating film, Wolf.
Instinct guided the filmmaker through the process. When we spoke with Biancheri she casually explained, "this film just came out of me so instinctively...I wrote it in like eight hours, you know?" You know how people casually finish full film scripts in under half a day? Wolf, starring George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp, follows people with species dysphoria at a treatment center. As our review of the film stated, it provides a dark and thought provoking exploration of mental health therapy. The film tackles questions of identity and self discovery through a unique yet clinical lens.
While many filmmakers strive to strong arm their audiences into siding with their personal viewpoint, Biancheri leaves her audience to fend for themselves, fighting to find meaning for themselves.
I did really try not to judge any of the characters or reinforce a particular message. Yes, of course there's this sort of an arching theme of personal freedom which is undeniable, but at the same time I thought, you know, for me it's just the multi-layered interrogation about it - identity in contemporary society and not just the question of 'should you follow yourself'...If you're opening up the question by not giving, like, an immediate, definite answer, it makes those themes just much stronger by the end of it; so, by being a little bit more objective at the start and clinical, I felt like then the audience could feel something stronger by the end, you know?
As was the screenwriter's goal, Wolf provides a level of catharsis that Brecht would have been proud of. The scientific objectivity that Biancheri curates challenges audiences to think for themselves and develop their own interpretations. Several of those interpretations have centered around gender identity issues. "It had been brought up before that there are comparisons with gender identity issues and so on," Biancheri explained. "I think it's been interesting ...to see so many...find, sort of like, solace or relate the film to gender issues." By leaving her cinematic thesis out of the film, she trusts her audience to find their own way, their own heart, and their own connection with the film.
It is all about instinct. It is all about trust.
Wolf comes out on December 3rd, 2021.
