The Club (El Club)
Film
Review
by Kam Williams
Pedophile Priests Repent at Secluded Retreat in Unsettling Drama from
Chile
The
critically-acclaimed Spotlight recently addressed the problem of
pedophilia in the priesthood from the point of view of the victims.
But if you're looking for a take on the issue more sympathetic to the
perpetrators, have I got a movie for you.
Nominated
for a Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category, The
Club is a disturbing, deliberately-paced drama for the very
open-minded directed by Pablo Larrain (Post Mortem). The picture is
set at a mountaintop estate nestled along the Chilean seacoast where
a half-dozen defrocked clergymen have been sent to repent.
The
secluded retreat is run with a firm hand by Sister Monica (Antonia
Zegers), a disgraced nun with a checkered past of her own.
Nevertheless. it's her job to enforce house rules dictated by the
Vatican including no communication with outsiders, no cell phones, no
self-pleasuring, no self-flagellation, and a vow of poverty.
Consequently,
the former pastors' Spartan-like daily regime consists of little more
than chores, attending mass, confessing their sins and praying the
rosary between meals. Still, there is much to be gleaned from the
clerics' conversations among themselves.
This one
feigns innocence, claiming, "I didn't commit a crime. I'm not a
queer." Another, ostensibly wracked with guilt, eventually finds
a gun and shoots himself in the head, when he can no longer live with
himself. And there's an unrepentant soul who says "I see the
light of the Lord in homosexuality," arguing that man-boy love
brings one closer to God than heterosexuality.
Rules are
made to be broken, and the plot thickens when a housemate sneaks into
town where he forges a friendship with a fellow pederast offering to
procure all the local kids he'd like to rape. Will he or won't he
take the creep up on the offer?
An
eerily-unsettling examination of pedophilia from the perspective of
the perpetrators suggesting that these sex offenders might not be
monsters, but merely misunderstood children of God.
Very Good (3
stars)
Unrated
In Spanish with subtitles
Running time: 97 minutes
Distributor: Music Box Films
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