The Club

This film will take you on a journey, if you let it - foremost has to do with the role that the Catholic Church played in Chilean history, Allende, Pinochet, and beyond. The final act may leave you scratching your head - it isn't well explained - but think about it, and it makes perfect sense. To say more would be a spoiler - and figuring it out isn't going to make you feel better. For taking on difficult matters so well, it deserves at least 9/10, and "No" is the next flick on my list.

My, this is one forthright and uncompromising. One reviewer suggested this was one club he did not wish to be a member of - what an understatement! Set in a godforsaken western coastal town in Chile, the muted colours and dulled visuals match the dour subject matter, if not the depths of degradation and abuse of power depicted here. Verbal depiction only, thank goodness, as this awful tale of bad catholic priests, really bad catholic priests and barely believably bad catholic priests, unfolds in a house for the repentant sinners. Except they are not repentant at all and seem to view their living quarters as some vaguely inconvenient holiday home. A devastating film of crimes against children made all the worse for the winging and wining manner that the various 'inmates' justify or even boast of their appalling past activities. Grim but essential viewing for anyone not fully aware of just how terrible and just how widespread and all consuming these practices were (are!!).

This is a film from Pablo Larrain who brought us 'Tony Manero' and 'No', and is an excellent film maker. This is about a sort of retirement home for bad Priests on the coast of Chile. There four priests and one fallen nun get to live out their days away from where they can do harm to their erstwhile flocks. The crimes range from sexual abuse of children to child stealing from unmarried mothers. Then after a new incident a crisis counsellor turns up with Vatican credentials.

His job is to find out what has really taken place and see if these people are still worth the efforts of the Mother Church.

Now this is a cold film, it is also very bleak at times with many references to sexual abuses and so can be difficult in places. However, it is also powerful and does not set out to wholly condemn anyone. Everyone gets to have their say and all angles seem to be covered which makes the whole thing more real.

It is also a film that has a sense of doom and an urgency that makes you want to carry on watching it. I am a fan of Pablo Larrain and this film has only encouraged me in that endeavour – recommended.

Unfortunately, child abuse and the Catholic Church go hand in hand, with offenders rarely being punished. I went to a Catholic school, and years after I had left it was reported that one of the priests working there as a principal had in fact had sexual affairs with minors. It is an ugly, almost taboo subject to talk about, causing this film to be all the more courageous and confronting.

One thing is certain very soon into EL CLUB; Pope Francis and the Vatican would love to sweep this film under a rug, much like the estranged priests we meet. They live together in a secluded house and they are hidden from society; the hours that they are able to go outside are very limited. The home is run by a nun-turned-caretaker, and it functions as a sort of priest retirement home, with one clearly suffering from some sort of dementia. This though is a retirement home with a difference, as it is a house for priests with… certain skeletons lurking in their closet.

However, their serenity and separation from their past evaporate as a fifth priest arrives with his own skeletons, not to mention a former altar boy following him. The viewer is immediately put to the test, as the obviously unstable man outside the house is crying out this new priests' name and recalling, in extremely graphic detail, their more intimate time together. At first he is a character yelling drunkenly outside the house, but later he becomes a pivotal character in the story.

He is Sandoken, a troubled and bruised man who was obviously sexually abused as a child. More than once he describes what happened to him as a child, further testing the viewer. The new priest's arrival and Sandoken's outbursts stir the pot, as soon the priests find themselves being interrogated by someone hired by the caretaker as a 'spiritual director', who works for the church and wants to speak to everyone separately and truthfully.

These scenes make up about a third or a quarter of the movie, as each priest and the caretaker are interviewed. This man's true mission is to have these priests confess to what they have done. These one-on-one talks are very deliberately filmed, as after each question is asked, we see an extreme facial close-up of the priest in question, emphasising the issues at hand, while at the same time soaking in the emotions that wash over the face of the character being interviewed.

The rules of the house change dramatically once this man enters the picture. Suddenly no alcohol is permitted, among other things. One of the priests owns a greyhound who he enters in races to bet on. It is an activity that all the men enjoy, but since this adviser has started poking his nose into their activities, he takes an interest in the greyhound; though not the sort of interest the priest would want. This 'spiritual director' doesn't seem to understand the reason for keeping an animal, so he asks directly, why keep the dog? This man works for the church but is extremely passive aggressive in his actions and particularly in his words and questions.

Having been raised Catholic, going to a Catholic school, this film resonated with me in a way I wasn't expecting. While I don't consider myself religious anymore, I found myself immersed and being reminded of the real life horrors this film is based on, wishing that it could all stop, that priests' records could become public.

Guilt and secrecy are the main themes here, with EL CLUB serving as a portrayal of priests with reasons to hide certain acts. The 'spiritual director' only wants them to confess, he doesn't really want to dig up their secrets. He is after all a man of the church. However, each priest is hesitant. This theme runs parallel with real life, as priests who have committed sins of this nature want them buried and forgotten about, rather than confessing. Ironic, considering part of their day-job is to listen to confessions.

That these priests have been sent to a remote house rather than remaining in the public eye also mirrors reality, as again the church would rather forget these issues ever occurred rather that revealing the truth.

This movie was made in Chile, and the events depicted were no doubt influenced by local issues: a man who was known to at least be involved in pedophile behaviour was assigned as bishop for Chile's armed forces, by the Pope himself. This caused an unprecedented level of outrage and protests by victims of abuse. All these people are represented in the character of Sandoken, broken and confused, unable to find direction. A bit like the hierarchy of the Catholic Church really, but that is a story for another day, and a long one at that. A heavy watch then, but one gets the sense that it was a film that needed to be made. Avoid this if you're not ready for a very heavy drama.

www.epilepticmoondancer.net

"The Club" in question is a community of disgraced priests and one nun condemned to live together in a remote coastal resort as penance for past sins, mostly involving the sexual abuse of children. After one of them blows his brains out another priest, a counsellor, is sent to investigate and to keep them in line. Pablo Larrain's extraordinary film is totally unlike any other dealing with abuse inside the Church. It plays like a thriller but is actually about social injustice and is deeply critical of the Catholic Church and I think it's a masterpiece; (it's also very explicit and very disturbing).

Larrain shoots it in Cinemascope in hues of mostly grey and brown as if we were peering through a fog, both literal and metaphorical, to see what is happening. The performances throughout are superb; you never get a sense that anyone is acting here, (it helps that none of the actors are familiar), and the use of locations is inspired. The grimness of the settings is perfectly in keeping with the theme. Far from easy viewing but absolutely essential.