Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

Big Bad Wolves is a movie that Quentin Tarantino called the best movie of the year; it's also an Israeli movie that is mostly a thriller, but could be qualified as a horror movie as well.   The reason that this movie straddles the line is that it's a slow burn, most of the actual horrifying moments come through the dialogue - as it is pretty sparse on the gory moments, and it just ratchets up the tension bit by bit.  

However, I would argue that a horror is meant to tap into primal fears, and this movie taps into more than one, a thriller drenched in paranoia as you're not quite sure where all three main characters stand.   

Warnings: this movie concerns a pedophile and a serial killer, as well as lacking in significant female roles.   (As far as I understand, women would be too rational, and this movie wouldn't have played out as it did; I can actually see a good reason for going with three male characters, and the minor characters being male, while there's... what, one woman who plays a very minor role and a couple who you only hear over the phone.)

That being said, this is going to be behind a cut. 

What happens when the lives of three men intersect?   Well, when they're Dror, a religious studies teacher and suspected pedophile and murdered, Miki, a police officer who's been fired for hiring two goons to beat up Dror, and Gidi, the father of the pedophile's latest victim, well, Big Bad Wolves happens.  

Miki is not only filmed watching as Dror is beaten in order to produce a confession, but it's been put on Youtube.   When he's fired, having been told this will blow over as soon as the next big video hits Youtube, and also told to let this case go, he can't.   He harasses Dror further, following him, making vague, and less vague threats, and simply tries his best to torment the man into confessing to the crimes Miki is sure Dror committed.   

And then enter Gidi.   Gidi is more passionate, more fanatical, and less sane than Miki.   After all, Gidi has lost more.   And both Gidi and Dror seem to understand to a certain degree: Miki and Dror are fathers of little girls, themselves.   The understanding becomes tension when the torture starts, including a hammer to Dror's hands to break his fingers, as the pedophile broke the little girls' fingers before killing them.  Not only that, Miki seems to become less and less convinced that Dror is the killer, as Dror says that as a father, how could he do this to other little girls?   

Miki never seems to lose faith in his conviction completely, though his doubts form a wedge between Gidi and Miki.   It turns into a game where all three men are playing against each other, and it's absolutely chilling to see them turn on each other.   

But the final horrors are yet to come.   As the killer's next victim is chosen, as Miki and Gidi become more frantic for different answers, I became less and less convinced that Dror was the killer.   He could have been.   He could not have been.   The one scene that really led credence to the theory was him noticing a young girl stretching in his class.   Did he notice because he was attracted to her - or did that stretching motion only make it clear that she was passing a note during an exam?   (The note, by the way, was a drawing of Dror as a killer of a little girl, which seem to wear down on him in a way that made me think he was innocent.)   But the truth is that it could have been the first was what initially caught his attention, and which led him to notice the note.   It could have been that he didn't care about the girl herself - her body, at least - but only cared that she did well in his class.    It's ambiguous scenes like this that leave you chilled and horrified at the end, where you get none of the answers you're seeking as a voyeur.  

And that's what you are: you're watching something intimate, something you shouldn't be privy too, and something that is, in the end, absolutely compelling.   Not for the weak of heart, but if you aren't triggered by these subjects, and you are willing to delve into some of the darkest parts of humanity then this is absolutely a worthwhile watch. 

My only regret?   I didn't buy a ticket when it came through the Jewish Film Festival and didn't see it on the big screen.   That would have really been something!