The Clan (Pablo Trapero, 2015) Argentina, Spain

Reviewed by Jonathan Lindgren, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2016, Lobero Theater.

What is good and what is bad? When do you become a bad person? This film make you question your own values, what would you do in the same situation? Pablo Trapero (the director) makes you feel sympathy for the parly crazy father who kidnap people for money. Desperate times demands desperate solutions and Arquimedes Puccio (Guillermo Francella) the father of the family we get to follow truly knows this. A middle class family with connections with people higher up in the government, kidnaps rich people to put food on the table and to live as something their not.

I did not read anythinh about the plot before I saw this film. I had no idea it was a film based on real life events. And it all started with a typical family drama with a kid playing rugby and a family that  does not aprove his choice of living. But it is a special film, at exaclty 30 minutes in, it goes from being a family drama to nudity and brutal murder. The bleached colors, the superb acting from the father and perfect costumes makes this film one of the best I saw during this festival.

Even if the family togehter kidnaps people, pressure other families of money and sometimes even kill them, you still have sympathy for them. But the biggest questionmark in this movie, that probebly most viewers likes but I did not was the music. Happy 70s rock playing during the kidnaping and shooting. it was great at the beginning of the movie, but the deeper you got in the movie, the more predictable the music got. Not to spoil to much, but the last harsch scene with a kidnap is to predictable whats going to happen. Right when the music comes on, you know that something bad is going to happen. Take this and ad some strange time jumping and you have some questionmarks during this film.

But all to all, the cinematography is beautiful made following camera, great music sometimes and stunning acting performance from both the father and the main actor Alejandro (Peter Lanzini). A movie i would highly recommend seeing.