New fascinating, hermetic mystery by Jessica Hausner about a teacher at an elite school who wants to bring her pupils to lead a food free life.
FAST FACTS:
• Radical, consistent arthouse cinema from a true master
• World premiere in competition at the 74th Festival de Cannes
• 7000 admissions at the Austrian theatrical release
CREDITS:
Country/year: Austria, Great Britain, Germany, France 2023; Running time: 100 minutes; Director: Jessica Hausner; Screenplay: Jessica Hausner, Géraldine Bajard; Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Amir El-Masry, Elsa Zylberstein, Mathieu Demy, Ksenia Devriendt, Luke Barker; Distributed by: Neue Visionen; Release date: March 28, 2024
REVIEW:
Jessica Hausner remains true to herself and her precise vision. She is perhaps even a little more radical and concentrated in „Club Zero“, her second film shot in English after her mesmerising „Little Joe“, goes even further and is even more virtuosic in the design of a hermetically sealed world that seems like a petri dish, a precisely elaborated experimental set-up in which zeitgeisty themes are resolutely taken to extremes and thought through to the end. Like its predecessor, this new work by the 51-year-old Austrian is a vision of horror, a horror film without monsters or ghosts though, without supernatural threats. If „Little Joe“ could be described as a continuation of „Invasion of the Body Snatchers“, then „Club Zero“ is Jessica Hausner’s highly idiosyncratic version of „Village of the Damned“. The horror, however, develops of its own accord, similar to what Todd Haynes did in the closely related „Safe“, in which Julianne Moore as a housewife develops an allergy to herself and her own life.
As the new nutrition teacher at an elite school, Miss Novak, played by Mia Wasikowska, hits a nerve with her teenage students with her concept of „conscious eating“: The kids want to be different, not make the mistakes of their rich parents. They reject capitalism and think about a new approach to life and how they themselves can best contribute to saving the endangered planet. Those who eat less and less are on the right path. Anyone who achieves mastery and joins Club Zero, which is reserved for those who no longer eat anything at all, has made it to the finish line. Miss Novak, who is as tidy and purposeful as she dresses, always in a tastefully color-coordinated preppy style with a tight-fitting polo shirt, buttoned up to the top, and elegant chinos, is a convincing ambassador for the unusual lifestyle, which, as it turns out and as one can guess, has drastic consequences for her followers. In the scene that was most talked about in Cannes, a girl regurgitates her food in front of her parents, only to shovel it back into her mouth with a spoon.
You are what you eat. And if you stop eating, at some point you are nothing. Yet „Club Zero“ is not a film that deals specifically with eating disorders. In this wondrously well-designed film, in which architecture, furniture and fashion are perfectly selected and always fit together one hundred percent, the human being is the alien object, the weakest link. Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, who has just been awarded a Silver Bear for his work on „The Devil’s Bath“ by directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, which was realized in a very different way visually, finds strict, very clear images for this, as if from a vacuum. Added to this is Japanese Kabuki music, which provides additional distance: you should watch, switch on your mind, and not simply consume and participate. Miss Novak will teach you how to do this.
Thomas Schultze