The Club (El Club)

THE CLUB (El Club)             B                    

Chile  (97 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  Pablo Larraín

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 

—Genesis 1:4

In a similar manner as Lars von Trier, Larraín is a full-blown provocateur, whose goal is largely to stir up as much trouble as possible, which this feels designed to do, even if it borders on the ridiculous.  What’s missing in this allegory of a church tainted by scandals is the outrageous wit and humor of Luis Buñuel in films like VIRIDIANA (1961) and Simon of the Desert (Simón del Desierto) (1965), while Larraín’s attacks feel more mean spirited and self-motivated, as if he relishes the act of condemnation.  Born to an upper class family linked to the Pinochet dictatorship, where his father was a right wing politician, Larraín has veered to the left, intimately familiar with his country’s past crimes, but he falls well short of an arena that offers any solutions, where his films feel more like finger pointing than well thought out journalistic exposé’s.  Winner of the Grand Jury Prize (2nd Place) at Berlin, this film will not win the director any friends in his home country, which is over 70% Catholic, as the director’s goal in this film is to take aim at the Catholic Church in Chile, who’ve been there as an institution since the nation was originally formed, often included in the upper echelons of politics, including the reign of dictators, holding the conservative to hard right positions.  Not for the faint of heart, this is a deeply troubling film set in a small, somewhat dilapidated coastal town of La Boca in Chile that is known for attracting surfers.  To the sacred sounds of Arvo Pärt, the same music used so effectively in Tom Tykwer’s WINTER SLEEPERS (1997), the story concerns an unassuming yellow house, where concealed from the world (and to the viewers initially) is the fact it is owned and operated by the Catholic Church as a kind of repository for disgraced priests who have committed serious crimes, where they are expected to use this time to repent.  Unfortunately, none of the current residents spend any time reflecting on the past.  Instead we see images of them on the beach training a greyhound dog named Rayo, making him chase a simulated rabbit strung to a pole, racing him relentlessly, timing short bursts of speed, and even entering him into a race, where a small group of men stare through binoculars from a distant field overlooking a racetrack while a lone woman accompanies the dog to the racing chute.  When Rayo wins, they contemplate making bundles of money by taking him to Santiago, the nation’s capitol.  

Meet Father Vidal (Alfredo Castro), a lifelong pedophile; Father Silva (Jaime Vadell), an army chaplin for 30 years that aided the military in torturing prisoners; Father Ortega (Alejandro Goic), whose solution for unwanted babies was to take them from the mothers that didn’t want them and redistribute them to those that did, otherwise known as baby trading; Father Ramírez (Alejandro Sieveking), who is too senile to remember his sins; and Sister Mónica (Antonia Zegers), the overseer who runs the house, who is not really a nun, but was accused of beating her adopted daughter.  This motley crew spends the majority of their lives tucked away from the world outside, as they’re not allowed to interact with the public.  While they really spend the majority of their days plotting and scheming, they are joined one day by another fallen priest, Father Lazcano (José Soza), who we quickly learn is another known pedophile, as no sooner does he arrive, but a homeless man on the street named Sandokan (Roberto Farías) begins shouting at Lazcano, describing in raw detail the filthy things that were done to him as a child by that priest, where his rant grows increasingly loud and disturbing, where the cowering priests don’t know what to do.  Handing Lazcano a pistol hidden away for self-defense, they encourage him to scare the rascal away, like a scurrying rat.  But instead, Lazcano shoots himself in front of Sandokan, taking his own life.  While an investigation from the police produces conflicting statements about the incident, everyone is cleared of any wrongdoing.  The Church, however, sends their own investigator, a morally righteous Father García (Marcelo Alonso) who intends to right a sinking ship, reminding these men why they’re there, as it’s not some country club running greyhounds, where the men have turned into lazy ingrates without an ounce of repentance. 

Like the arrival of Clint Eastwood to clean up the place, Father García is one serious hombre, interrogating each of them Stalinist style as if he’s conducting his own Inquisition, already appraised of their crimes, demanding a full accounting before God of their actions.  As all of their crimes are revealed, each of them instead offers an excuse that minimizes guilt or personal responsibility, leaving the Father in a quandary about their continued self-deception, resorting to threats, taking away the greyhound, shutting down the facility, where he’d just as soon see them all behind bars.  This kind of talk will not win him any friends on the premises, as this band of brothers refuses to wilt under pressure, as they’re not yet ready to face their Judgment Day.  Wary of this new priest, “He wants to change the Church.  The Church is 2000 years old, I like it the way it is.”  They go through the motions of pretending to lead better lives, but who are they kidding?  They’re running a feast-laden racket with booze galore hidden away from the world, living on hush money from the Church, as they’re considered too dangerous to mix with society.  Meanwhile, Sandoken is still around, choosing a vacant location alongside the yellow house, shouting more vile content into their ears at all hours of the day and night, only this time he’s visited by Father García, who wants to hear what it’s all about.  Fearing for what might happen to them, the tiny collective must act quickly, plotting an insidious plan that resembles FRANKENSTEIN (1931), instigating an angry mob scene, lighting the fuse, steering them towards the homeless outcast, as he’s the one to blame for what these waywards priests have done behind their backs, covering up their own crimes by blaming the innocent.  The choice to use a metaphor for crimes this historically egregious doesn’t really work, as the full impact of the Church’s very real actions to send these wayward priests to surreptitious locations in Africa and South America isn’t really felt, as these “criminals” are still being hidden and protected by the Church and not handed over to police authorities.  So ultimately what’s changed?  Rather than assess the damage of actual crimes throughout history, Larraín resorts to a savagely black satire, showing the extent a corrupt Catholic Church will go to protect its own, inventing an inflammatory new mythology of the absurd while lambasting the moral hypocrisy of past sins.  Shot in a dreary, often out of focus style, this low budget look is an improvement over the grainy images of his previous work No (2011), but the depravity of the subject matter seems intentionally bathed in a kind of moral blur, as if suggesting the Church has not yet come to terms with this issue.   

NO             B-            

Chile  France  USA  (116 mi)  2011  d:  Pablo Larraín

This is another heavily awarded film that seems a curious choice at best, the only Chilean film to have been nominated for an Academy Award in the Foreign Film category, also winning the Art Cinema top prize in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes where it received a “rousing standing ovation” when it screened.  While few South American films receive this kind of recognition, the award may be more for the director’s dogged persistence in completing his Trilogy using a background of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet’s 15-year military dictatorship, also including TONY MANERO (2008), an extremely provocative take on the Fascist mindset of the era, turning a disco dancer into a psychopathic serial killer with an ever accumulating body count, where the military presence looms ominously in the background, and POST MORTEM (2010), where a similar sociopathic character (played by the same actor Alfredo Castro) is a mortuary assistant who remains obsessed with a nightclub dancer even as the bodies pile up, remaining blind to the accumulating horrors of Pinochet's military regime.  Both films were shot in a grainy 16 mm blown up to 35 mm, where the director obviously feels comfortable with this grungy aesthetic, choosing a primitive U.S.-bought, 1983 U-matic video camera in the final installment that helps the film achieve the gritty authenticity of archival news footage from the era.  While some may accept the pale, washed out colors and the persistent blurriness throughout, resembling standard television shows from the 50’s or 60’s as opposed to the late 80’s, this easily qualifies as one of the ugliest looking films seen in decades.  While it was obviously the director’s choice, one would think it would only look worse on a small television screen, as it only seems to alienate or further isolate the viewer from the subject matter, especially since so little archival footage is actually used other than television broadcasts.  But what footage there is does blend seamlessly into the rest of the movie, but it begs the question, is that really necessary?  Do we not already understand the ugliness of the situation?  What’s different about NO from the other two films is rather than delve into the Fascist mindset, this one shows a Chilean population finally doing something about it, expressed in often darkly satiric images that show a fundamental understanding of how creatively developed media advertising, through originality alone, can overcome the apparent political stranglehold in government controlled mass media.       

While the film provides no background information whatsoever, Pinochet was installed in a U.S. backed military coup d’état in 1973 when democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende allegedly took his own life while under siege, surrounded by an armed opposition.  Pinochet’s Fascist military dictatorship ended democratic rule and targeted all political opponents, where thousands of leftists were killed, 30,000 tortured, and 80,000 arrested indefinitely, often disappearing without a trace, most all of which happened immediately after assuming power in 1973.  Nearly a quarter of a million left the country in exile, claiming political persecution from a Fascist police state that allowed no political dissent, and more followed when the nation’s economy continued to fail throughout the decade, where Pinochet was believed to have embezzled as much as $28 million dollars.  Nonetheless, at the behest of the U.S. that installed him, Pinochet agreed to abide by the outcome of a Constitutional referendum, the 1988 plebiscite, which would democratically legitimize his power.  In the month before the vote, the government controlled television airwaves allowed each side 15 minutes daily to make their case for or against Pinochet, scheduled late at night to suppress the viewership.  The film is a fictionalized adaptation by Pedro Peirano from an Antonio Skármeta play Referendum (both of whom appear as Pinochet supporters), where Gael García Bernal plays René Saavedra, a young hotshot advertising executive whose father was an infamous political exile.  His ultra conservative boss is Alfredo Castro, the star of the earlier Trilogy films, playing Lucho Guzmán, who’s none too pleased when he gets word that René has been approached by Urrutia (Luis Gnecco), a vanguard Socialist representing a heavily factionalized group of 16 opposition parties to design an advertising campaign against Pinochet, where they play upon the actual word “no,” suggesting no more, no violence, no repression, no dictatorship, no disappearances, etc.  But as many voices as there are in this coalition, there are as many disagreements, especially when René decides to take a positive and upbeat approach, distinguishing themselves from the repressed Pinochet conformity, marketing new and original ideas as the nation’s hope for the future.  What the leftists see, however, is a strategy to sell democracy much as they would any other capitalist product, making pleasing Pepsi generation commercials endorsing the No vote, where “Happiness is coming if you vote No,” instead of the more informative leftist political rhetoric, often leading to dismissive outrage, Escena de: "No" - Película de Pablo Larraín YouTube (5:11).

    

What the film does especially well is establish a shadowy, noirish atmosphere of lurking menace, where René’s car and property are vandalized while police vehicles remain parked outside, or he receives threatening phone calls that harm may come to his young son, and his boss makes still more threats about what could happen to him, so it’s a bit ironic that while others insist upon gloomy reminders of the horrors of living under a military dictatorship in their approach, René sticks to the positive, targeting youth culture with rainbow images of happiness and joy, young people dancing in the streets and singing a familiar “We Are the World” style theme song Michael Jackson - WE ARE THE WORLD - HD STEREO ... - YouTube (7:05) turning into something like this, Exclusive clip from Pablo Larraín's new film No, starring Gael García Bernal YouTube (1:53).  Within this murky existence, the film fails to address the sins of the Pinochet regime other than by insinuation, where facts and archival footage are surprisingly absent.  When Guzmán is assigned by the Fascists to head the Yes campaign, where in the Pinochet military vernacular they’re running against “faggots and commies,” pitting a subordinate against his boss, he threatens to use strong-armed tactics that are never employed.  For instance, what’s stopping a boss from demanding excessive work hours from René so he has no time left to spend on the campaign, or, as Guzmán has armed militants at his disposal, a police state from destroying the No television studio and all their equipment, making it impossible to produce nightly segments?  Hell, this kind of stuff was shown in Sam Fuller’s PARK ROW (1952) during rival newspaper wars, one side’s dirty tactics pitted against the other, until one is bombed out of business.  Instead, the audience continually sees short 30 to 60 second TV spots, without a clue how they’re filling 15 minutes every night, or how well their spots are doing with the public.  It’s likely there were other forces at work besides the TV campaign, but they’re not a part of this film, suggesting it was the work of this group alone that finally toppled a dictatorship, winning 56% of the vote, where 97% of the electorate voted, eventually leading to democratic elections for the Presidency and Parliament.  Television is a powerful medium, combined with the savvy political effectiveness of well calculated advertising, like candidate Obama’s very effective 2008 slogans promising “Change we can believe in,” or “Yes we can,” where this victory in Chile after 15 years of living under the thumb of a police state must have felt like the elation of electing the first black President in the United States.  There’s very little build up, however, or a rush of excitement, as the workers were led to believe they had little chance, where Gael García Bernal’s acting performance is emotionally subdued throughout, rarely showing any emotion except his outbursts against downbeat leftist rhetoric.  Even when victory is declared, he can’t even crack a smile, still living under the constant fear of reprisals.