The Clan (film)

For other uses, see The Clan – Tale of the Frogs.
The Clan

Film poster
Directed by Pablo Trapero
Produced by Hugo Sigman
Pedro Almodóvar
Agustín Almodóvar
Esther García
Matías Mosteirín
Axel Kuschevatzky
Written by Pablo Trapero
Starring Guillermo Francella
Peter Lanzani
Lili Popovich
Music by Vicente D´Elía
Cinematography Julián Apezteguia
Edited by Alejandro Carrillo Penovi
Pablo Trapero
Distributed by 20th Century Fox[1] (Argentina)
Warner Bros. (Spain)
Release dates
  • 13 August 2015 (2015-08-13)
Running time
 108 minutes[1]
Country Argentina
Spain[1]
Language Spanish
Box office US$13.7 million[2]

The Clan (Spanish: El Clan) is a 2015 Argentine biographical crime film directed by Pablo Trapero. It was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival[3][4] where director Pablo Trapero won the Silver Lion.[5] The film was selected as the Argentine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but it was not nominated.[6]

Plot

The story is based on the case of the Puccios, a family from Buenos Aires that kidnapped four people -three of whom they murdered- in the 1980s.[7]

The Puccios appeared to be a typical middle-class family from the district of San Isidro, with aspirations of moving up into upper class. The family was composed of Arquímedes Puccio, the family patriarch; Epifanía Puccio, his wife; Alejandro, their eldest son and a star rugby player; Daniel "Maguila", their middle child, who'd left the country years ago and hadn't kept in touch; Silvia, their eldest daughter and a school teacher; Guillermo, their youngest son, still in high school; and Adriana, their youngest daughter, who is in middle school. At the end of the Falklands War in 1982, Arquímedes, who had been working for the state's intelligence services in operations to capture communist guerrilla fighters, becomes unemployed. In order to maintain his financial status, he decides to turn to crime and start kidnapping people for ransom, targeting wealthy families. Alejandro starts to collaborate with his father in order to identify potential hostages, taking advantage of his popularity among friends and acquaintances to not raise suspicion.

The first victim is Ricardo Manoukian, a friend of Alejandro's. Though the kidnapping is successful, Arquímedes kills Ricardo anyway, to avoid any chances of being identified as the kidnapper. After discovering that Ricardo had been killed, Alejandro has a lapse of conscience, but his father convinces him to keep the secret by assuring him that if Ricardo had been left alive, he would have identified them as the culprits and gotten them all arrested.

With the economic benefits of the ransom, the Puccios improve their economic situation and, by early 1983, they replace their family deli with a successful store selling sporting equipment. Alejandro meets a girl called Monica at the store and, after a few dates, she becomes his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Gustavo Contenpomi, a friend of Arquímedes who was furious after he was deceived in a business deal with entrepreneur Florencio Aulet, contacts the Puccios, and suggests they make Florencio their next victim. Instead, Arquímedes and his cronies kidnap Florencio's son, Eduardo, since he was one of Alejandro's friends, thus making it easier to lure him into a trap. The Aulets pay the ransom, but Eduardo has already been murdered and his body buried in a shallow grave on an empty construction lot.

In December 1983, after the return to democracy in Argentina, Arquímedes goes to visit military officer Aníbal Gordon in prison - who had participated with Puccio in the kidnapping of a businessman in 1973 - and asks for advice on how to continue with the activities of the Clan in the new political landscape. Gordon advises him to lie low, since the military will have more difficulty protecting him now that they've lost control of the country, but Arquímedes does not heed the warning.

Alejandro accompanies his younger brother, Guillermo, to the airport, since he is going abroad on a sports trip. At the gate, Guillermo confesses that he knows what he and their father had been up to and tells him that he will not be returning after the tour is over, since he is afraid of what will happen if the family's crimes get discovered. Before leaving, Guillermo begs his brother to get out while he still can. Listening to his brother's plea, Alejandro decides not to join his father in the next kidnapping: that of another businessman acquainted with the family, Emilio Naum. Due to Alejandro's absence, the plot fails and Naum is murdered after refusing to stop his car when Arquímedes and his goons begin the abduction. Angered, Arquímedes returns home and beats Alejandro, blaming him for the failed kidnapping and accusing him of being ungrateful for all that he sacrificed to get him a cushy lifestyle.

To reconcile with his father, Alejandro travels abroad to convince his other brother, Maguila, to return to Argentina and join the Clan in their operations. Now in 1985, the group kidnaps businesswoman Nélida Bollini Prado and keep her prisoner in the house's basement. However, things do not go according to plan: the ransom negotiations fail; Adriana hears the woman's screams coming from the basement and realizes what had been going on; and Arquímedes gets a call from his former military superiors warning him that his stunts have garnered too much public attention, so he no longer has their protection.

In August 1985, when Arquímedes and Maguila collect the ransom in a service station, they are arrested by the police, who then breaks into the Puccio house, freeing the kidnapped victim and arresting the family, with the exception of Adriana. The case causes a media frenzy, calling the family the "Puccio Clan". The prosecuting attorney shows Arquímedes the overwhelming evidence against him and tries to broker a deal: If Arquímedes confesses to being the mastermind behind the kidnappings, his family will not be indicted as accomplices. Arquímedes, however, insists that he'd been compelled to carry out the crimes by his military superiors and refuses to sacrifice himself for his family. While his rugby team and Monica believe in his innocence, Alejandro can not withstand the pressure. After having a violent argument with his father in their jail cell (during which Arquímedes goads him into punching him so he can falsely claim the guards beat him), Alejandro tries to commit suicide by throwing himself off the fifth floor of the Tribunal building while he's being taken to testify.

The film ends with a text detailing the fate of the family: Alejandro survived his fall, and was sentenced to life in prison. While serving his sentence, he would try to commit suicide four more times. Monica kept visiting him for years, until he asked her to stop doing so and instead move on with her life. Alejandro died in 2008, a few months after being released on probation. Maguila never served his sentence, since he fled the country before he could be tried - presumably to Brazil, Australia or New Zealand - and in 2013 he returned to Argentina after the charges were dropped due to the statute of limitations. Guillermo was never indicted for his family's crimes. He never returned to the country or contacted his family and his whereabouts are unknown. Epifanía and Silvia were freed from prison for lack of evidence. Adriana was also never indicted and, after the trial began, her surname was changed and she moved in with her maternal uncles. After many years, she returned to live with her mother. Arquímedes was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was eventually released on parole in 2008. His family never made contact with him after he regained his freedom. He died in 2013 in La Pampa and nobody claimed his body, so he was buried in an unmarked, communal grave.

Cast

Production

The idea of making a film about the Puccio emerged from Trapero. The shooting of the film took place between late 2014 and early 2015.[8] Due to the long period of production, the film lost the opportunity to participate in the Cannes festival.[9]

Guillermo Manoukian and Rogelia Pozzi, relatives of the victims of the Puccio, knew early on about Trapero's intention to shoot the film. They supported the project, as long as it was a serious film. They provided information about the case, which was incorporated into the plot.[10]

Reception

The film opened in Argentina on 13 August 2015 to generally positive reviews. It had the largest opening weekend of any Argentinean film in history, with a box office total of 32 million pesos and 505,000 tickets sold between opening Thursday and Sunday, representing 53% of all cinema-goers, seven times more than the second most viewed film, Ted 2.[11] This surpassed the previous record of the 2014 film Wild Tales.[12] According to BBC News, 1.5 million people saw the film in its first two weeks of release.[7]

The film was screened at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015. Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter singled out the arresting sound track in their reviews; Variety called the choice of music "among the film's most unnerving strategies, reminiscent of Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, in which celebratory pop tunes evoke the era even as they practically serve to encourage the horrors depicted onscreen";[13] The Hollywood Reporter noted that the "loud, upbeat songs ... provide a counterpoint ... [suggesting] how kidnapping became simply a part of life for the Puccios. It's never clearer than in a daring montage sequence that matches Monica's cries of ecstasy during a bout of lovemaking with the cries for help of a kidnapping victim in the family's home. For these folks, there seems to be a mighty fine line between love and cruelty".[14]

The success of the film led to a TV series that is also focused on the Puccio family, Historia de un clan, starring Alejandro Awada.[15]

Awards

Awards
Award Category Recipients and nominees Result
72nd Venice International Film Festival[5] Golden Lion Pablo Trapero Nominated
Silver Lion Won
2015 Toronto International Film Festival Platform section Honorable mention[16]
30th Goya Awards[17] Best Spanish Language Foreign Film Won

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 El clan on the Comisión Asesora de Exhibiciones Cinematográficas website
  2. ↑ Nancy Tartaglione (6 September 2015). "'Terminator', 'Hitman' Lead Sluggish Frame; 'Compton' Tops 5 Markets – International Box Office Update". Deadline. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
  3. ↑ "Venice Film Festival: Lido Lineup Builds Awards Season Buzz – Full List". Deadline. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  4. ↑ "Venice Fest Reveals Robust Lineup Featuring Hollywood Stars and International Auteurs". Variety. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  5. 1 2 "LIVE: The winners of the 72nd Venice Film Festival". Retrieved 12 September 2015.
  6. ↑ Mango, Agustín (28 September 2015). "Oscars: Argentina Nominates 'The Clan' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  7. 1 2 Irene Caselli (September 3, 2015). "Puccio crime clan continues to intrigue Argentina". BBC News. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  8. ↑ "Pablo Trapero: "For me it was a challenge to make believable a story that seemed invented"". Writing Filmmaking. Retrieved 3 August 2015.
  9. ↑ "Trapero, Francella y Peter Lanzani presentaron "El clan", sobre los crímenes de la familia Puccio" [Trapero, Francella and Peter Lanzani presented "The Clan" about the crimes of the Puccio family]. Télam (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 August 2015.
  10. ↑ "La película "El clan", desde la mirada de las víctimas ¿Qué opinaron del filme?" [The film "The Clan", as seen by the victims. What did they think about the film?] (in Spanish). Vos. August 24, 2015. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
  11. ↑ "El clan, un récord para el cine nacional". La Nacion. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  12. ↑ "El Clan sigue batiendo récords: superó el millón de espectadores en 11 días" [The Clan keeps breaking records: it surpassed the million of spectators in a single day] (in Spanish). La Nación. August 24, 2015. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
  13. ↑ Debruge, Peter (6 September 2015). "Venice Film Review: 'The Clan'". Variety. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
  14. ↑ van Hoeij, Boyd (6 September 2015). "'The Clan' (El Clan): Venice Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
  15. ↑ "Así fue el debut de Historia de un Clan" [This was the debut of "Historia de un clan"] (in Spanish). Infobae. September 10, 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Toronto International Film Festival Announces 2015 Award Winners" (PDF) (Press release). TIFF. 10 September 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  17. ↑ "'The Bride' Leads Spain's Goya Award Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
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