Le clan

I thoroughly enjoyed this dark, engrossing film that addresses the harsh lives of a group of young men in the not-so-gay boondocks of France. I am always amused at "reviewers" who slag a film because the views of life and lifestyles depicted are not "pleasant" or meeting with their social approval. To them I say, folks, that's what mainstream Hollywood films are for. Don't expect to find it in a challenging French melodrama. If you are able to open your eyes to a depiction of life without Hollywood endings, you may find that this film depicts relationships and unhappy lives with a stunning honesty, brutality and even, dare I say it, bleak but ravishing beauty.

We tend to laud films like American Beauty because they peel away the veneer of idealized American domesticity to reveal lives of quiet desperation. We take comfort in that -- knowing that even seemingly perfect lives are, under the surface, as miserable as we might view our own to be. In Morel's Le Clan (Three Dancing Slaves was the title I saw it under here in the States), we get a truer, less sanitized view of real lives laid bare. The desperation isn't quiet. It's crazed and exposed and all too believable. It's a very masculine film showing how men just do what they do. No apologies and, all too often, no explanations. Yet, somehow, it's relatable and understandable. Yes, it's a slice of pain punctuated with too few moments of what we would call joy. But sprinkled throughout are small glimpses of a more beautiful world. It's not lost on these characters. And it's not lost on the viewer. I found it haunting and heart-wrenching.

For the originality of its content and manner of telling, Gael Morel's "Le Clan" deserves wide art-house distribution. It does, however, need a better English title. Life may be difficult for people in the film, but they are not slaves and make choices that attempt to better their situations, if not always happily. Why not simply "A Clan," since nobody remembers Griffith's second title for "Birth of a Nation," or "Brothers"? Two boys practice a North African "slave dance," but for sport and release.

The tightly edited movie can be thought of as short stories about three brothers and their father. With rapid shifts we keep learning new things about the characters. Sometimes one wonders what went on during a gap, but usually one can figure it out and the dialogue that would have worked it through would have been sentimental and out of character.

One shot of the brothers huddled together watched by their father is difficult to justify realistically, but it works as a symbolic representation. If meanwhile one wants everything spelled out and sweetened, there is the Québec film "C.R.A.Z.Y." The brothers do maintain enormous familiarity. The youngest one, very drunk, is helped by a brother to vomit.

If that's shocking, we have to take it as a fact of the milieu. The banlieux of France have recently been in the news. "Le Clan" goes much further with stories that lead one to care for the characters in the variety of their difficult situations of social derogation, dangerous labour, sexuality, and self-esteem.

Gaël Morel (Wild Reeds, Under Another Sky, Full Speed) seems to continue to test cinematic minefields and while not every film is a success, they each indicate that there is a reservoir of talent in this writer/actor/director that will eventually galvanize into to a significant voice. This much maligned little tale 'Le Clan' (oddly but in the end appropriately titled in English 'Three Dancing Slaves') has more going for it than most audiences acknowledge: for all its weakness there are some very sensitive moments about father/son relationships, filial love, romantic love, racism, bigotry, and the ever-growing dysfunctional family problem.

Three brothers live with their recently widowed father in a small town near the Alps in France. Marc (Nicolas Cazalé) is a rebellious youth, into drugs and petty crime and at constant contention with his overbearing father (Bruno Lochet); Christophe (Stéphane Rideau) is recently released from prison and is trying to live straight by starting from the bottom in a pork factory and working his way to the top; Olivier (Thomas Dumerchez) is the youngest and though tattooed and quasi-rebellious is the sensitive one whose gender issues are just beginning to focus. The film is told in three versions, one by each brother, and from these segments we paste together a family disrupted and needy. Marc fights and performs dangerous deeds, Christophe struggles to re-create his broken life, and Olivier finds love and passion with Hicham (Salim Kechiouche), Marc's friend, who is North African and repeatedly dances the capoeira, a slave dance, for his own expression and his need to connect with Olivier. Despite the differences in these young men there are repeated encounters that signify their bonding. One quiet scene shows the father awake, sitting and watching the troubled sons asleep, naked, entwined in each other's bodies: it should be clipped for a still shot as it is very beautiful.

There really is little resolution of an overall story; these three short stories simply end in their own fashion and the interlocking meaning is left to the viewer. Each brother is a 'slave' in his own manner. Yes, there are moments of violence, a pitiful animal abuse scene, and gaps in dialogue that bump the film around in a clumsy fashion, but look for the little moments of visual beauty and the movie takes on different meaning. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp

A Gael Morel film whose theme will be familiar to viewers who have seen "Wild Reeds" or "Come Undone" : young, handsome, sexy, disturbed young Frenchies trapped in the limited prospects offered by the mediocre towns and cities far from Paris. Here we have the three sons of an indifferent French father and a Maghreb mother, recently deceased. Where they live horny young men lack even a town whore for relief and, resignedly, must rely on the local grouchy, bored transvestite.

Morel favorite Stephane Rideau is a 20-something, "scared straight" ex con who will trade his youthful wildness for the dull comfort and security of middle class respectability while his two younger brothers grapple, respectively, with intolerable powerlessness and gay love.

All the guys are eye candy and Morel and his actors have never suffered from fear of frontal. All of which would mean little were it not for the interesting characters and Morel's unique cinematic style. Rent it. You'll enjoy it. And if it turns out you disagree, hell, it's only 88 minutes including the credits crawl. Jim Smith