Thanks for the memories!

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Because a large majority of moviegoers expect to be simply 'entertained and made happy' by cinema it makes sense that this film would prove difficult for some audiences to digest. But I would urge anyone with a love of cinema to watch 'Le Clan' as it is a very honest portrayal of a working class family made up of characters that do not necessarily fit together in obvious ways. Though Le Clan is unbridled and overtly masculine, none of the characters are hyper-realised. Not every thought that is in their head is vocalised either and there are no forced (dare I say it, Spielberg-esquire) conclusions drawn at the end of the film. For this reason I'm sure it failed to satisfy certain viewers more used to neat resolutions in the films they watch but I have to say this is one of the reasons I loved it.The camera does indeed linger over the actors in seemingly quite exploitative ways, however I felt there was merit in this also. For example, Christophe remains clothed throughout the film except for one scene in which he is concealed by Marc and Olivier. Christophe is an open character who responds and reacts and is open enough not to require a reveal of his physique. However, Marc's abrupt and conflictingly passive aggressive nature requires that kind of adoration in order for the audience to witness the truth of him, his body and his physical beauty being more noticeable than the real him. With regards Olivier, he at first seems too young for anyone to be looking at him in that way but then he is revealed as having the body of a man, therefore demands that the audience treat him as such and as the film progresses the audience is able to.The scene where Marc is forced to kill his dog is heartbreaking as this is the one creature he loves unreservedly. Marc cannot say that of his friends, his father, his brothers or the prostitutes he visits. After this we watch him crumble eventually unable to even carry out the revenge plot he's made his goal throughout the film. Out of all the brothers Christophe represents what each of them perhaps has to look forward to, the process of being tamed, becoming a cog in the machine and taking ones place amongst the dead meat, whereas Olivier is sensitive and hard to define, both sexually and otherwise. The scene in the boathouse between Olivier and Hicham is interesting when you think of the fact that the actors had to do it for real but not so when thought of within context of the characters and their lives. While the song that bookends their relationship is so mournful and beautiful that you almost feel the foreboding fleetingness of their love as you view it.As an observer you feel as though the characters have gotten under your skin and by the end of the film whether watching as the impotent father or as the adoring Hicham you're not sure which one of the brothers out of Marc, Christophe or Olivier you care for most as neither is totally defined by what they do. I have to say I felt a strong connection to this film for reasons I can't quite pinpoint and that is why I recommend 'Le Clan'. It is a haunting and beautiful film that stays with you long after you have viewed it.

"A beautifully rendered slice-of-life film", says Netflix: I would say it's more a sick pedophile's leering look at young Arabs in some god-forsaken French village. Though there are occasional beautiful shots of a nearby lake (it's hard to screw up sunlight on a lake, folks) the majority of the film is monotonously bland. The young actors are all physically beautiful, but forced to say and do the most unattractive things by this sick twisted film maker. More appropriate adjectives than "beautifully rendered" would be pointless, sickening, ugly, tedious, disjointed, boring, ridiculous, obtuse, unclear, loud, obnoxious, and stupid. Three Dancing Slaves may be the most miserably unpleasant movie I have ever seen. I've been an avid movie watcher for forty years and this is the first time I ever wanted to leave the theater, including PINK FLAMINGOES. But where FLAMINGOES is intended to be funny, and the gross-out humor is intentionally over the top and self-consciously silly, SLAVES takes itself totally seriously. The entire film is conducted without any vestige of humor, grace, or wit, and the gay angle is minor, trivial, and pointless.

This is the story of 3 working class brothers, living with a weak father in the aftermath of their mother's death. The film is formally divided into 3 sections, one for each brother, although the protagonist remains the first brother we explore, Marc, a tortured soul.CONTAINS SPOILERS Marc is an interesting character, unable because of his position in a macho subculture to access his feelings, even though he often shows the potential to be a caring individual. When he is beaten up by some local thugs and his dog killed, he takes a revenge which rebounds on him, leaving him paralysed, machismo is paralysing being the point.The most interesting section of the film has the older brother Christophe's taking a job in a meat factory. He soon rises in his bosses' estimation and is promoted. On the way he has learned that to survive in the workplace, one has to be ruthless. We last see Christophe with a girlfriend and a future. We know that he has achieved that future by accepting his part in a dehumanising world. It is no coincidence that he has been released from a spell in prison at the play's start. Prison has tamed him, he has agreed to conform, he takes his place amongst the dead meat, he is rewarded.The film is strongly homo erotic and the camera spends its time dwelling on the brother's bodies, especially Marc who is exceptionally attractive (making it all the more tragic when he body is crushed. I have read a po-faced review which says that this reduced its characters to sex objects. This is telling about a certain type of Puritanism. Many young working class men are beautiful and indescribably sexy - the film puts this at the centre of the equation, so as not to geld the subject.In any case, there is a narrative excuse for the camera's gaze: the story is seen through the eyes of a family friend, who is gay and eventually has a brief affair with the youngest brother, Olive. The affair ends abruptly. The film is no Queer as Folk fantasy. Olive retreats from a love affair in which his femininity can be expressed sexually and freely to become Marc's carer, his femininity giving him his dead mother's place in the family and so becoming helpful, familiar, imprisoned. His lover "escapes" to a "free" urban life in Paris, where people merely want to exploit him for sex. The choices given the film's characters are bleak.Le Clan is slow and elliptical in narrative terms but eventually becomes clear. It is worth sticking with as a complex and honest dissection of working class masculinity.

While several friends loved it, I didn't care for this film. One can strive to find redemption in the way the 3 brothers cared for one another in this amazingly dysfunctional family, but it doesn't make up for the gratuitous violence and brutal portrayal of the killing of a dog.This film seems mostly about pushing the edges of the shock envelope with frontal nudity (shaving and pub trimming included) psychological and physical brutality taking center stage. For some, this kind of non-Hollywood shock therapy is apparently enjoyable. For me it was an unfortunate way to spend one and one half hours.Many people walked out during the screening I attended, and many more complained about the inclusion of this film in the local film festival as unnecessary. If hitting a painful nerve is the intent, this film does that well.