03/02/2021 - We talked to the director about his documentary, in which the actual canines are finally not the villains

(Courtesy of the Sundance Institute)

Shown in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, Misha and the Wolves [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sam Hobkinson
film profile] takes on Misha Defonseca, the author of Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, a massive bestseller in which she described her horrific childhood, later revealed to be completely fake. We talked to director Sam Hobkinson about the film.

Cineuropa: The movie brings to mind the controversy surrounding The Painted Bird. It's crazy how many similar cases we know of.
Sam Hobkinson: The “false memoir” is a literary genre. Around the time when Misha's book came out, there were quite a few of them, written by people who actually suffered during the Holocaust. They were Jewish – they just exaggerated their experiences. But to me, this one had layers and layers of truth that you could peel back, all these twists and turns, and it said something about this “Holocaust industry”, where the survivors almost “star” in their stories. It was probably a case of a small lie that grew and grew to the point where she realised she couldn't get out of it. Not to wholly dismiss the idea that she created this imaginary world to soothe her pain, as I do think it's a part of it, it's convenient for us to believe that she believed. We don't look so stupid, being taken in. But it wasn't all a ruse to make money either, as there are far easier ways to do that. She was intrigued by the Jewish faith: her first husband was Jewish, and she genuinely associated with their suffering.

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You’re right – she never truly lost herself in this idea. After all, she wasn't able to lie to Oprah Winfrey, and she refused to appear on her show!
Interestingly, later on, we see her on a live Belgian show, and she is doing a pretty good job. Who knows? Was it the international nature of Oprah that made her think [the truth] was going to get out, or was she thinking that she couldn’t lie to that many people at the same time? To be honest, I think she was annoyed with her publisher, and there might have been a bit of spite in her deciding not to do it. It's all very complex, and that's what makes it interesting.

Without spoiling too much, you “borrowed” this concept of deceit in the film. It's like watching an Agatha Christie adaptation, with everyone playing their parts: the Radio Host, the Teacher, you name it.
The Holocaust Survivor, the Publisher... Structurally, it seemed like I could introduce all of these new characters, and they could shed new light on the story. I wanted to make a film that started off like a historical documentary, but then became a psychological thriller. I wanted to put the audience in the same position as the participants, so that the revelations would feel like actual revelations.

It makes it more playful, even though it's a dark story. Seeing an older lady becoming such an effective detective... She deserves her own spin-off.
I never imagined she would have such a big role in the film, but she didn't have an ulterior motive – she wanted to find out what was going on. Not only did she experience the things that Misha claimed to have experienced, but she didn't stand to gain anything. It was a difficult film to finish – we have all these people who are in some way tainted, and I didn't want them to have the last word. But with Evelyn, we found this bit when she talks about how she went from feeling that what Misha did was deplorable to maybe understanding her a little. She is such an articulate woman, and still, she struggles to articulate how she feels. This sums up the whole film.

There was money involved, quite a lot of it, but what really got to people was that they had their emotions played with. I wanted to include people who were her friends and neighbours, who first heard this story. They felt guilty that they had encouraged her.

It's almost as if she was testing her material on them.
I don't think it was as calculated as that. It was a small, comforting story that this woman realised she could tell very well. What she got back was sympathy and fame, and that goes to one's head. Then someone asks you: “Can we make it bigger?” I don't think that was her plan, but it suited her. You could say it's a story about storytelling.

The wolves are “her” thing: she loves animals and built the rest around it. If you read the book, it's like a children's tale – that's why we introduced the illustrations. It came out at a time when less was known about the Holocaust; it was an understudied area, and it was easier to lie. When the articles came out, she published a statement, calling it “her reality”. We all reinvent our memories, possibly not to such an extent, but memory is not history. We forget things that are convenient to forget. I know that's the usual excuse of a criminal: “I was mad.” But Misha certainly had an inner world. She didn't trust human beings, so she populated it with animals. And once she was past the lie, she was able to put herself into that role.