Sometimes, horrible things can have beautiful exteriors, and it takes a reckoning to see their true colours. This sentiment could not ring truer than in Wolves, the feature debut by Zurich-born Jonas Ulrich, who wrote, directed and edited the work. With it, he gives us a timely reminder to look for clues and understanding beyond what we’re fed – or, perhaps, beyond our love and passion for someone or something. Partly in Swiss-German, partly in English, Wolves has just enjoyed its world premiere in the Feature Film Competition of this year’s Zurich Film Festival, at which the in-film band also performed a live show.

Ignoring her job at a day-care centre and her father, who is in palliative care, twenty-something Luana (Selma Kopp) searches for an identity by acting as a pseudo-groupie for the titular black metal band of her cousin Domi (Fabian Künzli, whose real-life group also play the rest of the band members), stylised “WLVS”. She’s immediately enchanted by the band’s new long-haired singer Wiktor (Polish actor Bartosz Bielenia) – effortlessly aloof and commanding in his stage presence and scream-shriek vocals for which the genre is known. As the band begins to notice Wiktor’s apparent alliance with promoters of fascist ideology, Luana is too caught up in her love for him and their blossoming relationship to realise. “I don’t think you’re any worse than anyone else,” she tells him.

Ulrich gives us an intriguing mini-lesson in black metal by exploring Wiktor’s allegiance to the National Socialist black-metal subgenre – or, colloquially, Nazi black metal – a genre that arose in the 1990s. It is known for promoting fascist ideology through neo-Nazi symbolism in its music and visual identity – often co-opting pagan motifs – through the view that black metal is inherently anarchic. But let it be known: the subculture only makes up a small portion of enthusiasts, something that the band members insist upon. Viewers will certainly gain a stronger appreciation for what metal has to offer, despite its aesthetically hardened exterior.

However, for all of the promise in the fascinating conceit of Wolves, it is hard to discern what Luana sees in Wiktor in this case of a young woman blind to the truth; he, at best, is playing it cool, with seemingly little interest in her. Fundamentally, their relationship is left to a few lovey-dovey moments that stand in for a convincing on-screen connection, which is what we feel is really lacking at the core of the movie. Regardless, a round of applause should be given to DoP Tobias Kubli, who shifts seamlessly between the polished, whitewashed world of Luana’s everyday life and the rich, dark but magical world of the metal scene. He and Ulrich combine the film’s lush and idyllic, often snowy Swiss landscapes with the harsh reality of the movie's themes, showing that something so hateful can thrive beneath such a beautiful surface.

Wolves is a Swiss production by Zurich-based Dynamic Frame GmbH, with its world sales managed by The Yellow Affair.