Misha and the Wolves – first-look review

In 1997, an extra­or­di­nary mem­oir was pub­lished detail­ing the expe­ri­ences of a Holo­caust sur­vivor who had been adopt­ed as a child by a pack of wolves. Enti­tled ​‘Misha: A Mémoire of the Holo­caust Years’, the book was a best-sell­er in France and Italy, and was even optioned by Dis­ney to be adapt­ed into a fea­ture film. There was just one prob­lem: none of it was true.

It would be over 20 years before Misha Defon­se­ca (real name Monique de Wael) admit­ted that her book was a fan­ta­sy, but var­i­ous peo­ple had sus­pect­ed as much for years – includ­ing the pub­lish­er she had sued over the book’s dis­tri­b­u­tion and roy­al­ties. Sam Hobkinson’s doc­u­men­tary tracks the sto­ry across decades, delv­ing into the real­i­ty that de Dael obscured, and how she invent­ed a tale that cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion of read­ers around the world.

Inter­views form the major­i­ty of the film, chiefly with de Wael’s for­mer pub­lish­er Jane Daniel and Bel­gian geneal­o­gist Eve­lyne Haen­del, whose par­ents were killed dur­ing the Holo­caust. The pair turned ama­teur detec­tives to inves­ti­gate the dis­crep­an­cies in Misha’s sto­ry, wrestling with the fact that doubt­ing her account – if indeed it was true – was a par­tic­u­lar­ly cal­lous thing to do. Their per­sis­tence and metic­u­lous research is pre­sent­ed in fas­ci­nat­ing detail, and Hobkin­son presents a fairy­tale-like qual­i­ty to his film which mim­ics the fan­tas­ti­cal nature of its source material.

With sub­ject mat­ter like this, it would be hard to present a film that isn’t inter­est­ing; some sto­ries are sim­ply made for telling. But Hopkinson’s deci­sion to allow the peo­ple impact­ed by da Weael long-run­ning lie to speak for them­selves is shrewd. In par­tic­u­lar, Haen­del gives a mov­ing account of her own life as a hid­den child and com­ing to terms with the mur­der of her par­ents. The wealth of archive footage is also com­pelling, allow­ing us to see how con­vinced of her own fan­ta­sy de Wael was.

The phe­nom­e­non of writ­ers who fab­ri­cate events in order to sell books per­sists to this day; one only needs to look at JT Leroy or James Frey. But the truth is often stranger than fic­tion, and this his­tor­i­cal sto­ry of decep­tion is told with artis­tic con­fi­dence, explor­ing what drove de Wael to fab­ri­cate such an out­landish tale, and why it was so easy for peo­ple to believe her. It’s an engross­ing, poignant watch, with a charis­mat­ic cast of char­ac­ters who speak can­did­ly, though its bait-and-switch tricks will work best on those who know as lit­tle about the case as possible.