Movie Thoughts: Wolf Summer (2003)

• Released: February 28 2003
• Directed by: Peder Norlund
• Running time: 1 h 27 min
• Rating 2.5/5

Synopsis

During a rock-climbing trip she's taking all by herself, a girl named Kim finds herself caught between a friendship with two wolves and the sheep farmers who are deadset on killing every last one of them.

My Thoughts

In some ways, this is similar to Misa Mi. Scandinavian movie about a girl on a vacation trip who befriends a wolf and her pup(s). However, I prefer the Misa Mi execution.

The characters, first of all. They're kind of unlikable. Kim started out pretty good as a tomboyish yet dedicated main character, but about ten minutes into the film she forces her only friend to lie for her while she's taking her climbing trip. Her mother is not much better, often leaving her daughter behind for vacations with one of her many relations. Heck, even when Kim makes it clear that one of them makes her wildly uncomfortable, her mother continues to pursue a relationship with him. 

I did like that not all of the sheep farmers were bad necessarily. They all partook in the wolf hunt, but the only one that really wants to kill them just for the sake of having them gone forever and not just for protecting his livestock is Jon. Still, he's a one-dimensional villain. 

For the wolves in this movie which takes place in Norway they interestingly used timber wolves, an American species. Heck, they even used black wolves, a color which rarely ever occurs in European wolves, which these wolves are supposed to portray (the only subspecies found in Europe that has a significant amount of melanistic individuals is the Italian one, which these "Norwegian" wolves clearly aren't supposed to be). The deer they used was also a white-tailed deer, another species not found in Europe. The bear may be a grizzly, but since I'm rocky on bear knowledge I'm not going to say that with any certainty. It was definitely weird to see all these American species in Norway, that's for sure. 

The animal welfare started out pretty okay, with Kim interacting little with the wolves, but it eventually became worse. There's scenes where the wolf fights a bear (yes, really), scenes where they're tied and hauled up which made the animal actors show signs of distress, and Kim just overall touches them quite a lot (heck, she's constantly carrying the pup). I'd have preferred if, similarly to Misa Mi, they'd kept the animal-human contact to a minimum. You can befriend a wild animal and still respect it enough not to constantly physically interact with it. 

There's also quite a few nauseatingly gross scenes in the movie so if that's not your thing you might wanna watch out. Stuff like Kim eating regurgitated wolf food, sheep/deer carcasses and a closeup of a bullet removal from a wound.

The movie was just decent, but not all that good, mainly held back by the way the wolves/bear were used and the pretty unlikable main characters. The wolves were good main characters, though. Respect to Mama Wolf and Baby Wolf.