Wild is rather a disturbing film, depending on your frame of mind – if you’re in the kind of place where you’d find a wolf sexually attractive (and do something about it), though, you’ll feel right at home.

Beginning innocently enough, Ania (the striking Lilith Stangenberg) is a young office worker, clearly going through the motions of her life every day, disengaged from her job and family. When she catches sight of a wolf on her walk home from work however, her world tilts on its axis and she finds the focus she has hitherto been without.

Things get weirder: she brings the wolf into her flat and attempts to domesticate it, but is clearly eager to make it more of a partner than a pet. There are fantasies involving licking tongues and sexual gratification (to say more would be to spoil it for those who may get their kicks here, but you get the picture).

Amongst its bursts of debauchery – and one very random music video-esque masturbatory interlude – Wild displays some very offbeat, dark humour. Occasionally this works to break the inner boggling of one’s mind, but more frequently is just too peculiar. Stangenberg is uncompromising in her performance as Ania, and at times the admirable message of writer-director Nicolette Krebitz – that women should be free to liberate themselves from social constructs of femininity and, indeed, society itself – comes through. And then she defecates on her boss’ desk (an agreeably unpleasant Georg Friedrich), before setting it alight…

Decent performances and commitment to its anarchic message save Wild from being a tasteless feces-smear on cinema. It also keeps its viewers guessing plot-wise, albeit with a sense of trepidation. There is probably an audience for this film, but it should sadly anticipate only a few members.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Lilith Stangenberg, Georg Friedrich, Silke Bodenbender, Saskia Rosendahl

DIRECTOR: Nicolette Krebitz

WRITER: Nicolette Krebitz

SYNOPIS: A girl living in Halle, Germany finds her life consumed by a chance encounter with a wolf on her way home from work.