This is the story of 3 working class brothers, living with a weak father in the aftermath of their mother's death. The film is formally divided into 3 sections, one for each brother, although the protagonist remains the first brother we explore, Marc, a tortured soul.
CONTAINS SPOILERS Marc is an interesting character, unable because of his position in a macho subculture to access his feelings, even though he often shows the potential to be a caring individual. When he is beaten up by some local thugs and his dog killed, he takes a revenge which rebounds on him, leaving him paralysed, machismo is paralysing being the point.
The most interesting section of the film has the older brother Christophe's taking a job in a meat factory. He soon rises in his bosses' estimation and is promoted. On the way he has learned that to survive in the workplace, one has to be ruthless. We last see Christophe with a girlfriend and a future. We know that he has achieved that future by accepting his part in a dehumanising world. It is no coincidence that he has been released from a spell in prison at the play's start. Prison has tamed him, he has agreed to conform, he takes his place amongst the dead meat, he is rewarded.
The film is strongly homo erotic and the camera spends its time dwelling on the brother's bodies, especially Marc who is exceptionally attractive (making it all the more tragic when he body is crushed. I have read a po-faced review which says that this reduced its characters to sex objects. This is telling about a certain type of Puritanism. Many young working class men are beautiful and indescribably sexy - the film puts this at the centre of the equation, so as not to geld the subject.
In any case, there is a narrative excuse for the camera's gaze: the story is seen through the eyes of a family friend, who is gay and eventually has a brief affair with the youngest brother, Olive. The affair ends abruptly. The film is no Queer as Folk fantasy. Olive retreats from a love affair in which his femininity can be expressed sexually and freely to become Marc's carer, his femininity giving him his dead mother's place in the family and so becoming helpful, familiar, imprisoned. His lover "escapes" to a "free" urban life in Paris, where people merely want to exploit him for sex. The choices given the film's characters are bleak.
Le Clan is slow and elliptical in narrative terms but eventually becomes clear. It is worth sticking with as a complex and honest dissection of working class masculinity.
CONTAINS SPOILERS Marc is an interesting character, unable because of his position in a macho subculture to access his feelings, even though he often shows the potential to be a caring individual. When he is beaten up by some local thugs and his dog killed, he takes a revenge which rebounds on him, leaving him paralysed, machismo is paralysing being the point.
The most interesting section of the film has the older brother Christophe's taking a job in a meat factory. He soon rises in his bosses' estimation and is promoted. On the way he has learned that to survive in the workplace, one has to be ruthless. We last see Christophe with a girlfriend and a future. We know that he has achieved that future by accepting his part in a dehumanising world. It is no coincidence that he has been released from a spell in prison at the play's start. Prison has tamed him, he has agreed to conform, he takes his place amongst the dead meat, he is rewarded.
The film is strongly homo erotic and the camera spends its time dwelling on the brother's bodies, especially Marc who is exceptionally attractive (making it all the more tragic when he body is crushed. I have read a po-faced review which says that this reduced its characters to sex objects. This is telling about a certain type of Puritanism. Many young working class men are beautiful and indescribably sexy - the film puts this at the centre of the equation, so as not to geld the subject.
In any case, there is a narrative excuse for the camera's gaze: the story is seen through the eyes of a family friend, who is gay and eventually has a brief affair with the youngest brother, Olive. The affair ends abruptly. The film is no Queer as Folk fantasy. Olive retreats from a love affair in which his femininity can be expressed sexually and freely to become Marc's carer, his femininity giving him his dead mother's place in the family and so becoming helpful, familiar, imprisoned. His lover "escapes" to a "free" urban life in Paris, where people merely want to exploit him for sex. The choices given the film's characters are bleak.
Le Clan is slow and elliptical in narrative terms but eventually becomes clear. It is worth sticking with as a complex and honest dissection of working class masculinity.