Wakolda

Patagonia, 1960. A family travels on a deserted road to join the city of Bariloche. They meet Helmut Gregor, a German physician. At first, the doctor is proving himself to be helpful to the entire family. But soon, his disgusting secret comes up…

Surrounded by mystery, Wakolda tells the story of Mengele, the infamous German doctor who conducted atrocious experiments on Jewish people, pursuing a quest of perfection. It is a fact that he hid for a few years in Latin America and it is rumoured that he kept on experimenting his theories on living people.

In this film, he meets a family where the mother is pregnant with twins and the sister, who was born two months before term, is suffering from her short height. Mengele behaves like a gentleman, only willing to help. But soon, the family finds out who he is and that he has been using them for his experimentations.

The father, Enzo, is making dolls and it is a metaphor of Mengele’s obsession of beauty and perfection; he tricks Enzo into mass-producing his dolls, making them all look similar, lifeless and beautiful. When the father questions Mengele’s interest for dolls, the doctor simply replies “I have a taste for beauty”. And all is said.

The film is well made, well written and a total success. The scenery is beautiful, the actors are amazing and the story is gripping. Wakolda tells the story of a disturbing episode of the world’s history, where a bunch of men thought they could make the world perfect.