The Clan
classified 15 SPlease note: This was screened in Sept 2016
Guillermo Francella (The Secrets in Their Eyes) turns in a performance for the ages as the charismatic patriarch of a seemingly normal middle-class family who descend into criminality in this disturbing and utterly electric true-crime drama.
Buenos Aires, early 1980s. On the surface the Puccios look like most other families. Steely-eyed patriarch Arquimedes (Francella) - a product of the military dictatorship but now unemployed after the Falklands War - presides over a household where his wife and children gather for evening meals and discuss their days. Only Alejandro (Peter Lanzani), his eldest son, stands out as a successful rugby player on the brink of breaking into the national team. So far, so normal. But when Arquímedes starts using Alejandro as bait to start kidnapping members of wealthy families and demanding ransoms for their safe return, his meticulously planned hits rely both on his son's complicity and his family’s blissful unawareness (or is it wilful ignorance?) of what is happening right under their noses. Will the political forces that protected Arquímedes continue to have his back?
Brilliantly playing the ordinariness of the Puccios' domestic life against the brutality of their crimes, this incredible film delivers with a swagger and ferocity – on a scale perhaps not seen since Scorsese’s Goodfellas - a searing exploration of the nature of authoritarianism and the banality of evil. We would go so far to say this is a bona-fide classic - with a lead performance from Francella that is one of the most extraordinary you’ll ever see.