One of the most acclaimed films of the past year is celebrated Chilean director Pablo Larrain‘s “The Club.” Picking up awards at both the Berlin Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival, the drama is a must-see for arthouse lovers, or for those interested in a provocative study of sin within the church. It’s a film we admire immensely, in fact our own Jessica Kiang contributes a critical essay on it for the DVD and Blu-ray release from Music Box Films.
Larrain’s film centers on the residents of a secluded house in a small Chilean seaside town — Vidal (Alfredo Castro), Ramirez (Alejandro Sieveking), Silva (Jamie Vadell), and Ortega (Alejandro Goic) — and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile by the Catholic Church to purge their past sins, the separation from their communities being the worst form of punishment meted out by the Church. The men keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings. However, their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican (Marcelo Alonso) who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation, along with a former victim of the priests’ abuse (Roberto Farias).
To win a copy of “The Club,” follow us on Facebook and Twitter, tweet: “I want to win The Club from @ThePlaylist. #WinThePlaylistContest,” and include this link. Your final step: just email us your tweet, with your full name and address, and tell us the name of your favorite foreign film of the past year. Good luck!
“The Club” hits DVD and Blu-ray on May 3rd.