Chintis Lundgren | Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves / 2019 [animated short film]

finding their callings

by Douglas Messerli

 

Chintis Lundgren and Draško Ivezić (screenplay), Chintis Lundgren (director) Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves / 2019 [18 minutes] [animated short film]

 

Toomas, the central figure in Estonian Chintis Lundgren’s and Croatian writer Draško Ivezić’s animated film, is a hot wolf. His ass or tail in particular seems to grab the attention of nearly all who encounter him—so much so that you might almost say of him, as did Marcel Duchamp of his rendering of a mustachioed Mona Lisa, L.H.O.O.Q ("Elle a chaud au cul" or “She’s got a hot ass”), in this case changing the pronoun.

     Toomas works at a well-paid engineering job, which he quickly loses since he refuses the advances of his female boss.

     Meanwhile, his wife Viivi, with two brats to care for and another on the way, seeks out how to become “empowered.” She joins the empowerment seminar to “reclaim her life.”

     Her husband, home from his former job, hides the tools of his trade in a closet, and soon after begins to realize that he must keep his job loss and the reasons for his being fired from his family.

     After an endless wait at the unemployment office for his number 9987 to be called, the woman behind the counter explains that they haven’t had any jobs for engineers for years. But, she asks, “Are you good at fixing things?”

     Viivi, meanwhile, visits The Church of Female Empowerment. She decides to attend a meeting, but when she offers up her debit card for a ticket, she is told that the account has insufficient funds.

    Toomas, in the meantime, shows up to the door to which he was sent by Natasha in the unemployment office. The lady of the house, drink in hand, claims she needs her washer fixed, but when the sexy wolf leans over to check it out, she cannot keep her hands of his “tail,” despite his protests; and soon she is all over him with her claws.

     Toomas once again escapes the arms of the female aggressor. But showering back at home, Viivi tells him that she has signed up for yoga class, and he is forced to lie once more: “The wages are a bit late, dear.” Her response: “But you did for the children’s field trip, right?”

     Now Toomas has no choice but to go into the “fix up” business, visiting a willing lamb, who sits him down to tea, and when he asks for the “machine,” hands him a small stack of cash. In bed, with him later, she reports that she has other friends who “need fixing.”   

   At the next family meal, Viivi and her two children sit eating soup without their husband and father, he obviously still engaged with the lamb.

   When he finally enters after 6:00, the children run to him as usual, while Viivi asks, “Have you been drinking?” He’s brought her flowers and a card into which he’s clipped money for her yoga class.

   On his next “fixing” job his customer is no longer a feline or lamb, but an older tom cat, and soon after leather-clad boy pussies. The tom cat wonders has he ever considered show business. Viivi wonders the next morning why he hasn’t already left for work.

   She visits the head of the women’s empowerment organization, who treats all those of another gender as slaves, several of them even holding up the furniture. The lady with a whip commands her servant Žorž to attend to her guest, as he bows before Viivi, declaring “It’s my fault,” while the pregnant mother, whip in hand, beats him.

     Toomas has now been cast in a movie director by Alejandro Hardon, wherein his major line is “Where shall I put it…?” When he’s handed a dildo, Toomas asks, “What is this?” followed by his major line, which so excites Hardon that he declares they should go to the desert.

     In his major scene, Toomas stands leaning over the trunk of a car as cowboys come up behind him, Toomas pulling out of the trunk the dildo, and asking them, “Where shall I put it Antonio?” Hardon is delighted with the shot!

     Viivi stands washing up dishes when the doorbell rings; it’s Žorž bringing her flowers. As he sits at the table, looking around the room, he observes garbage in the overflowing can, the broken plate she dropped when the doorbell rang, and suggests “It looks like you need some help.” She suggests that perhaps he could help her, but his answer is, “But I don’t want to.” Suddenly, with whip in hand, we know Viivi will finally get what she is asking for.

    At the cast party for Toomas’ movie, Hardon declares not only that the film’s trailer is out, but that it will be a big hit. He demands a kiss, but Toomas, finally fed up, storms off with the words “I am done!”

   As the director declares, however, “Nobody say no to Alejandro!!!” We watch him take out his gun, put on his bullet belt, and shoot up his car, the film, and even the cast as, with a group of Mariachi singers in the back seat, he drives off to the city to where Toomas has now returned.

    Chased down by Hardon and his band, Toomas escapes into an alley, returning home to admit that he lost his job at the very moment that Viivi is beating Žorž, he responding, as trained, “It’s my fault.”

    By accident, Viivi’s foot turns on the television showing the trailer of Toomas film, and at the next moment, her water breaks. Toomas scoops her up his arms and rushes out of the house only to be met by Alejandro Hardon and his Mariachi performers.

     In the next few frames, we see Toomas and Viivi sitting in the front seat with Alejandro at the wheel, obviously rushing them to the hospital. He responds, “It’s my fault.”

     But in the next scene, we see the new baby ensconced in a playpen with his siblings playing nearby. Toomas is writing something at his drafting table, and Viivi sits, whip in hand, speaking to a TV audience while Žorž serves up coffee to both Viivi and Toomas.

     Finished with what he was writing, Toomas now posts it to his door: “Toomas. Deluxe Plumbing.”

     It appears that both he and his wife have finally found their true callings in our contemporary society.

   This surprising and idiosyncratic animated film belongs on a double bill, I’d argue, with Lenny Bruce’s and Jeff Hale’s Thank You Mask Man.

     My only regret is that these two writers and animators employed the worst stereotypes, from decades ago as well, of feminism and of what the hetersexual male really desires. Female self-empowerment does not mean turning men into slaves; and sex workers generally do not suddenly become leering sex fiends. At least Toomas remains true to Viivi, and obviously he cares for his family.  

 

Los Angeles, July 8, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).