Near the beginning of THE CLUB, a shot rings out and the ramifications of that sound will echo throughout this quietly intense film about accepting guilt and attempting redemption. It happens shortly after a new resident arrives at a secluded house on the windswept Chilean coast where priests live cloistered an apart from the world for their various misdeeds that range from torturing prisoners to pedophilia. Almost immediately, a reminder of the misdeeds of that new resident appears outside and in the form of a man shouting at the top of his lungs a list of all the crimes committed upon him as a child. What happens next, like the stark and spare film itself, is a harsh allegory of both Church and State, with sins willfully committed, and innocents suffering unspeakably.
Alfredo Castro
The incident prompts not just a police investigation, but also that of the Church as a priest, Father Garcia (Alfredo Castro) interviews the residents, and their caretaker nun, to discover what really happened. There’s more to his job than uncovering the truth. He’s also tasked with closing the house down for good, and deciding how best to dispose of its residents who have nowhere else to go.
AntoniaZegers
Lies build on lies. Desires go unfulfilled. Desperation builds. And each resident confesses crimes that he or she does not necessarily consider as such, and the priest inquisitor become more and more disturbed at the perversion of religion that is so lightly regarded. His answers are woefully insufficient to the problems at hand, and the way he grapples with that, and with his faith, is psychologically devastating. His interview with the nun (Antonia Zegers) who keeps the house is a masterpiece of horror, as she recounts her reasons for being sent there without realizing on any level the nature of her sin. Chipper as she prattles on about evening prayers and singing inspirational songs, she is a portrait of pure evil unable to recognize the baffled shock look in her questioner’s eyes. He is slowly realizing that he is not so much in a tidy house by the sea than in one of the inner circles of Hell.
No quarter is given to any of these characters, nor to us in the audience. Director Pablo Larrain considers the full implications of what it means to fall from grace, and the effect it has on both the sinner and the sinned against. At the heart of THE CLUB is the disquieting question of what happens when the past cannot be forgiven or forgotten, as well as the savage nature of justice. Or at least as much justice as this world provides. THE CLUB is an emotional wringer of a film that finds a compelling beauty in its uncompromising intensity.
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