THREE DANCING SLAVES / Gaël Morel (2004)

October 5th, 2005 by Scott Marks

Gaël Morel’s THREE DANCING SLAVES (2004)

Le Clan (2004)

Directed by: Gaël Morel

Written by: Christophe Honoré, Gaël Morel

Cast: Nicolas Cazalé, Stéphane Rideau, Thomas Dumerchez, Salim Kechiouche, Bruno Lochet, Vincent Martinez, Jackie Berroyer, Aure Atika, Nicolas Paz, Mathias Olivier, Gary Mary, Geordie Piseri-Diaz, Clément Dettli, Pierre Vallin, Janine Ribollet

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Genres: Drama

Rating:

What sounds like the revival of a 1950’s Yvonne DeCarlo programmer is actually a contemporary story of three brothers each facing a crucial turning point in their lives. How the original title “Le Clan” translates into Three Dancing Slaves is easily the film’s most thought-provoking question.

Welcome to a bleak and thoroughly unredeemed universe. Not unlike the racially-mixed adoptees that comprise John Singleton’s Four Brothers, here is a family torn apart by the recent death of their mother. The film is broken up into three segments, one per sibling. Marc (Nicolas Cazale) is a brutal skinhead who, when not working out, smokes, does drugs and dines under the Golden Arches. Marc’s group of friends seems to be straight, yet they engage in circle-jerks and use vibrating cell phones as sexual aids.

Fresh out of jail, older brother Christophe (Stephane Rideau) finds employment at a local ham factory that will hopefully keep him on the straight-and-narrow and away from the hellbent Marc. Olivier (Thomas Dumerchez), the openly gay brother, and the only one who seems to be in a healthy relationship, is given the shortest amount of screen time.

The film is so aggressively venal that when you see Marc in the bathtub washing his dog, thoughts of pending bestiality come to mind. Want to move an audience? Kill a dog! Hell, it worked in Men of Boy’s Town. Give me nihilism, give me deep-seated unpleasantness, just don’t slaughter a pooch, even a pit bull, to move the plot along.

It gets worse. While the dog clutches for life on the ocean shore, instead of drowning his pet, Marc picks up a rock and pounds Fido’s head into jelly. I warn you - this repugnant, exploitative display will have many of you making an early exit.

Shock piles upon shock: In addition to the canine killing, the slave-master the boys are attempting to break free of is their father. Dad’s a cold tyrant who doesn’t flinch when he walks in on Marc trimming his pubes. Anal sex with a pre-op transsexual, while his pals look on, finds self-loathing Marc berating his conquest for not yet having a vagina.

Desperately wanting to emulate directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Francois Ozon, Morel barely rises to the level of a Jeff Stryker porno. After all, why stop to contemplate masculinity and sexuality when you can just as easily display it?