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Movie review: The Club (El Club)

25 March, 2016 — by Ben Rabinovich0

the club

In a little house in a small Chilean seaside town, four retired Catholic priests spend their days training what looks to be a potentially lucrative racing greyhound and taking walks along a quiet beach. They don’t appear to want or need for anything.

And that’s a problem.

The four priests have been sent to this little house in a “fucking sad town” by the Catholic Church in order to repent for their crimes, ranging from child-snatching to horrific and protracted child sexual abuse. However, thanks to their supposed supervisor, Sister Maria, they don’t live in “a house of repentance and prayer” but instead the titular ‘Club’. So rather than enforcing the rules, she bends them to accommodate the priests’ interests, which happen to coincide with her own.

Since the priests are prohibited from talking to anyone in the town, it is Sister Maria who must take the greyhound to the racetrack and it is she who quietly but fiercely celebrates the dog’s victory and therefore the promise of winnings. As the film progresses, we learn that while it is meant to be a house of penance, it is actually a den of moral iniquity.

The theme of disconnection between the way things are and the way things should be is the very fabric of the film. Every single member of the club has committed, or has been accused of committing, heinous crimes yet not a single one shows an ounce of remorse. Either because they are convinced, like the newcomer Matias, that their actions were not sinful, or they deny the accusations ever took place like Father Silva, or they admit the sin but shift it onto another, like Sister Maria.

The vacuum created by the cognitive dissonance of these people becomes a breeding ground for disease, infecting everything and everyone who comes near.

el club screenshot

Even colour isn’t safe. The whole film is dominated by mute tones: the ocean is either murky blue or grey, the clothes beige. Even the brightness of the sun is shrouded in clouds of grey. At first this evokes the tranquility of the town, but as things start to take more morally dubious turns, the lack of colour creates an utter state of numbness, which particularly jars during the final and at times shocking third of the film.

Even the supposedly pious figure of Father Garcia, brought in to clean up the mess left behind (literally) by Father Matias, is tested and brought to his knees by the contaminated air of the little house of priests.

As the film progresses, a Christ-like figure emerges, haunted by, and paying for, the sins of the Fathers. Whether he knows it or not, this man forces the corrupt men to confront their darkest acts, causing them to commit even more evil in an attempt to stop any possible disinfection. By the end of it, you’re don’t know whether he succeeded in cleansing the infection. But more worryingly, you’re not quite sure if he succumbed to it himself.

The Club is a fascinating counterpoint to recent Oscar winner Spotlight, but I definitely need a long shower now. 4/5

Check out the rest of the latest VOD releases in our new movie reviews section including the phenomenally gripping The Invitation.

Date:
Title:
The Club (Le Club)
Rating:
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