Enlarge image
Scene from »The Pack«: Celeste (Paula Luchsinger), the sister of the missing Blanca
Photo: Fremantle International Distribution Arte
“Imitate a sound.
The letter A «, says drama teacher Ossandón (Marcelo Alonso) to his 17-year-old student Sophia (Mariana Di Girólamo).
You shouldn't just imitate the letter, you should moan and be out of breath.
She hesitates, then does what he says.
"So do you feel a tingling sensation?" He asks.
She has tears in her eyes and does not answer.
"The Pack", a Chilean series by the brothers Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín, begins soberly.
They hold on to it instead of looking away, they don't play down anything.
But it is also about a topic that cannot be trivialized: violence against women, online and in real life.
Because Sophia is by no means the only victim.
Ossandón has also attacked other students.
They start demonstrating in front of the school building every day.
But nobody listens to them, everyone is annoyed by feminism.
Deep-rooted macho culture
But then a video emerges of a gang rape.
The girl who is abused by four boys in turn in an old factory building is Blanca Ibarra (Antonia Giesen), one of the protesting schoolgirls.
Nobody knows where she is.
Her sister finds out in the depths of the Internet that Blanca was involved in the "game of the wolf".
A group of men who call themselves "The Pack" must follow the wolf's instructions.
Its aim is to harm women, especially the noisy, rebellious ones.
"The masculine nature is violent, territorial and dominant," the participating men are repeatedly told.
The plot of the series is loosely based on a true case. In July 2016, five men raped an 18-year-old woman in Pamplona, filming each other and sharing the video in a Whatsapp group called »La Manada«, the wolf pack. The process brought the #MeToo movement to Spain. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets and demonstrated against the patriarchal justice system - the men were initially released on bail and were punished more severely only after the protests.
In Chile, too, only eight percent of all reported rapes end with a conviction of the perpetrator.
In November 2018, a Chilean collective of four women, called "Las Tesis", began to protest against the deeply rooted macho culture of South America.
They sparked mass protests in Chile, Mexico and Colombia.
"You are the rapist!" They shouted, blaming state structures.
The pupils in "The Pack" want to make themselves heard with similar exclamations.
Multi-layered female characters
The fact that women are repeatedly victims of violence because of patriarchal structures is shown in the series in its portrayal of influential men: the Catholic school principal Father Belmar (Francisco Reyes), for example, who does not believe his protesting students and wants to protect drama teacher Ossandón. "Such accusations will change his life," he says. But that's not even his worst offense.
In contrast, there are the strong women of the series: the commissioners Olivia Fernández (Antonia Zegers), Carla Farías (María Gracia Omegna) and Elisa Murillo (Daniela Vega), who are looking for Blanca as a team of three.
Her characters are complex and struggle with problems that particularly affect women: combining work and motherhood, having to work harder than your male colleagues, being seen but not heard.
The plot is not only exciting, but also looks almost incredibly real in many places.
The first scene in which the insecure Sophia has to groan is initially only shown from one perspective, that of the teacher;
as if the audience itself was a tensioner.
The group rape is also staged.
These could be videos that are also shared in real life on the Darknet.
This feeling is reinforced by the pale pictures, the serious faces and the gloomy mood.
As in reality, the series has no completed storyline, the game is not over.
Actually, it is just beginning.
"The Meute"
can be seen in
the Arte media library
until July 24th
.