Meow Wolf
I am no art nerd. I know a lot of the references, but not enough to pass a pop quiz on them. I know even less about the more avant garde or ‘post-modern’ styles, but one thing I am is an admirer of campy sci-fi and fantasy nonsense. It turns out that Meow Wolf fits at least one of those areas of interest.
Meow Wolf: Origin Story is a documentary from directors Morgan Capps (her first movie) and Jilann Spitzmiller, and tells the story of the Meow Wolf art collective from Santa Fe, New Mexico. As is typical with this sort of documentary, we see various talking heads and some older footage to set the stage, but also embraces the ‘Maximalist’ (as opposed to minimalist) aesthetic style in unusual, evocative animations that echo and reflect the story as it is told.
In 2008, a group of friends and artists struggling in Santa Fe joined together to form an art collective, weirdly called ‘Meow Wolf’. They have artistic ideals off the beaten path, some anarchistic, some socialist, some sculptors, some engineers, but all interested in a different sort of art that is normally popular, especially in the ‘high art’ community.
They are able to raise money to start a new interactive exhibit, a maximalist spaceship designed for people to really get in there and mess around. The movie shows (using a lot of footage at the time) them building and struggling, pushing against expectations and sometimes each other. There are a lot of various personalities interviewed, and some of them run together a bit, because since they are real people it’s hard to always latch on to what is clearly different about them and their motivations.
But the theme of persevering through tragedy to embrace the unusual and strange continues, as the movie takes a detour to describe the death of one of the key founders. This helps connect more seriously with these weirdo artists, and suddenly the intense, off-putting animation gets put into better context. The group falls into dire straights and must figure out what to do, and if there is a way forward (spoiler: there was).
Enter George R. R. Martin, who is commonly referenced in the promotional material for this movie and Meow Wolf itself. Martin gets involved with the community due to his love of the weird and sci-fi/fantasy, and the fact that he lives in Sante Fe and has a lot of money. I didn’t know about this little story about his interaction with his city, so that was a fascinating discovery.
The movie didn’t necessarily convince me I need to fly out to see one of the Meow Wolf exhibitions, but it did convince me to highly respect what they’ve accomplished. There are some fun people in this movie telling a story that has its ups and downs, but ends in a way that is satisfying yet open ended to the future.
What I really appreciate was how it used the normal documentary methods at times but kept things unique by utilizing that recurring off-putting animation and score. It helps to potentially connect you to the world Meow Wolf is trying to create, and perhaps may sell some tickets, although I’m not sure they need the help anymore.
Meow Wolf: Origin Story has a run time of 1 hour 28 minutes and is not rated.
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