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Le Clan (2004)

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From Time Out London

Crouched in a playground playhouse in preparation for one of several abortive revenge attacks, Marc (Nicolas Cazalé) is interrupted by some young kids playing cowboys; for a moment he plays along with them – only his gun is real. Shocking, affectionate and confused, the gesture suits a film concerned with the problematic acting out of masculinity in the absence of women. Marc is one of three brothers still reeling from their mother’s death: the eldest, Christophe (Stéphane Rideau), is about to leave jail; sensitive teen Olivier (Thomas Dumerchez) keeps his head down; Marc cultivates his body and nurtures his rage while their father looks on with an impotent sneer. Christophe’s release and decision to go straight is the catalyst for Marc’s further breakdown.
With a section focused on each brother, ‘Le Clan’ (co-written by Morel and Christophe Honoré, who made ‘Ma Mère’) is provocative but somewhat disjointed. Most potent is the sweltering intensity of Marc’s circle, a hypermale arena of torsos and face-offs, rituals and physical grace, which echoes Claire Denis’ ‘Beau Travail’ (1999) and even Fassbinder’s ‘Querelle’ (1982). There’s a chillier tenor to the alternative pecking order of Christophe’s new meat-packing job and a more relaxed feel to the touchingly romantic final segment, in which Olivier spreads his wings. It’s frustrating that this last gets such short shrift – it both feels abbreviated and is saddled with a distancing retrospective voice-over from another character – as Olivier’s progress offers more intriguing potential than the schematic trajectories of Marc’s machismo or Christophe’s career. Still, the intelligence and sensitivity in the portrayals of the characters makes this an appealingly abrasive portrait of a male colony.

Author: BW

Time Out London Issue 1812: May 11-18 2005

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User reviews of this film

yduric said...

Posted on Jul 30 2007 00:12 Pretentious and preposterous are in my opinion the most approriate adjectives to decribe this disaster of a film I would rather say that Mr Morel attempts to plagiarize Claire Denis and R.W. Fassbinder and is very, very far from mastering their art of filming male bodies/colonies; I would even add that in some scenes, he even (unsucsessfully) tries to plagiarize Pasolini.Now, let's come to the plot: contrarily to his co-writer, Christophe Honoré, whose film 'Ma mère', no matter how unpleasant it may be to some people, knows exactly what it is about,'Le clan' is a huge mess that claims to explore the aspects of an all-male environment, and , as the director so kindly expresses it, the human male in its vulnerability, but fails at every level. First of all, almost all of his characters are formatted: same look, same shaved heads, same deliberately unclear sexual behaviour: it is as all of them have repressed homoerotic fantasies, but at the same time display the most caricatural straight macho behaviour: take for instance, the scene when they're watching a pornographic film together, and in the adjacent room, there is a transvestite!!! (if they are so male, why not pay a female prostitute?) wainting to be fucked by all of them. Another example of total absurdity is when one of the brothers wants to avenge himself from drug dealers by provoking a hit-and-run car accident, and deliberately later crashes his car on a tree: another complete inconsistency; there are many others, such as for instance, the 3 brothers sleeping nude together with their father waching them with an appalled glance (are all youg men supposed to be incestuous???!!!) Not to mention this bastard of youngest brother who uses the arab boy (the only consistent character in the film) to make him lose his virginity and then dumps him for no apparent reason and continues to have sex with his flying instructor. And with all of this, are we supposed to have understanding/compassion for a bunch of degenerate characters? No, I do not buy it, and, being a male myself, I would NEVER IN MY LIFE indentify myself with these repulsive boys, who no way, in my opinion, represent a coherent portrait of today's youg men.

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