Pablo Larraín’s Berlin award-winning film EL CLUB (THE CLUB) opens on Easter Friday in UK and Irish cinemas. We spoke to Larraín after the UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. THE CLUB tells the story of four unlikely housemates who live together in a little town by the sea. Each man has been sent to this place to empty the skeletons from his closet. One day their fragile domestic setup is disrupted by the arrival of a fifth man, who brings with him the past they thought they had left behind…

Jack Toye: All my friends at Berlinale 2015 saw THE CLUB and loved it! I’m so pleased to have seen it at the 2015 London Film Festival. You won the Jury Grand Prix in Berlin. Could you compare and contrast Berlinale with LFF for us?

Pablo Larraín: It’s different. Most of the movies that are here have already been in other festivals. To me the London Film Festival is a place for people who want to watch interesting movies that were in other festivals around the world. The only difference is that you’re not the first one to see a film, and it’s not a competitive festival, even though there are awards in the main competition, right?

JT: Yes, there are a few UK-centric films which get their world premieres here, I believe.

PL: But it’s not the goal of the festival? They’re not after being a festival like Cannes or Berlin or Venice, which I think is very interesting. You’re not in a competitive space, so you’re taking care of the people that are in London or England. You want to become a window for the best movies of the year.

JT: We were saying earlier on how it’s kind of like Queen’s Greatest Hits album – everything that’s good in the year.

PL: It’s great. It’s fantastic. And most of the festivals are like that. There are many festivals around the world. Only a few of them have the ambition that they must premiere a movie. Most want to look after their local population and community and they work for them. They have programmers travelling the world to work for their local community.

JT: THE CLUB is your fifth feature film, and it follows on from 2012/2013’s NO. What prompted the shift in focus for your films, from the last one which focused on the political establishment, to the ecclesiastical establishment of THE CLUB?

PL: It’s hard to know. It’s usually very spontaneous. I just shot a movie about Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet. I never thought I’d make a movie about him, not sure when it’s going to come out, it’s all very spontaneous. I was waiting to make that movie and then the movie was postponed to this year, so we had six months open up, six months free without a specific job, so I decided to make THE CLUB. I think it’s an interesting subject. What happens is that I end up working with impunity. That’s the subject that would connect my three previous movies about the Chilean dictatorship with this one. How you deal with impunity. Every organisation has a structure of power, but not everyone is the same in front of the law – I don’t think that’s possible. The question here is, “is everybody the same in front of the eyes of God?”

“I don’t have a goal or want to change anything. I don’t have that pretension.”

JT: There’s a definite visual aesthetic to the film. If NO’s was a VHS film-stock aesthetic, then THE CLUB’s is a hand-held HD cam. For the cinematography fans out there, what camera did you use and why?

PL: I used a high resolution camera, a super HD, and old Soviet lenses. This movie works in a grey zone with the storytelling, so we needed to find some kind of visual aspect which could support that. I didn’t imagine this film with bright colours, as it wouldn’t make any sense, and wouldn’t match what the story was saying. Remember a movie is not just the plot, structure and characters. Most of a movie is the atmosphere and the tone. That’s where you penetrate the sub-consciousness – where it could be frightening. That’s what we’re looking for.

JT: Some directors choose to shoot blockbuster films where towers explode, and scenes are randomly shown in 3D. Other directors, and I like to think of you as one of them, choose to use cinema as a more interesting art form. What do you feel the role of a contemporary feature film director is?

PL: Oh man! I think it’s hard. You’re asking someone who just makes the movies that are possible to make, and that I want to make. I don’t have a goal or want to change anything. I don’t have that pretension. What I do know is that a movie can create some kind of conscience in a cultural space – connecting with other cultural activities which could create some kind of change. Chiming in with literature or plastic art or theatre. Altogether the culture itself would potentially create a change. But, otherwise cinema is not a big thing. I’m not trying to entertain – that’s for certain. I’m trying to deal with something that could just raise some kind of susceptibility. We all have susceptibilities, and they’re different. But there are a few which are similar. So when you can touch them a little bit, you can connect with those things.

Then it’s interesting to use as a document of a period – particularly if you’re dealing with the freedom of fiction, it’s the most arbitrary act ever. That’s what I like to stick on. I think a filmmaker should always be someone very irresponsible because when you start to be responsible, then, you’re a journalist. I feel like we’re somehow like kids with bombs. The good thing about it is that even if the bomb explodes, no-one really gets hurt. Everyone’s safe with cinema. If you make a bad movie, all that would happen is that everyone would forget it. But if you make a good movie, all that’s going to happen is that everybody is going to be fine. But it won’t change much, I don’t think.

THE CLUB is in UK cinemas 25 March 2016 #TheClubFilm

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