A nutritionist who has just been hired at an elitist private high school in an unnamed European city leads her students into a dogma of non-consumption.
The previous feature film by Austrian Jessica Hausner, Little Joe, was a quirky, clinical and haunting thriller about a scientist who creates a flower that is supposed to make you happy. Scripted as Little Joe by Jessica Hausner and the Frenchwoman Géraldine Bajard, Club Zero is a satire in the form of suspense in the same intriguing and icy register, which is interested in overconsumption and class divides, through the delicate question of eating disorders (with some rather crude scenes).
Embracing a minimalist aesthetic reminiscent of that of her compatriot Ulrich Seidl, co-producer of the film, Jessica Hausner (Crazy Love) stars the glacially indolent Mia Wasikowska as a nutritionist who joins the faculty of an elite high school.
This Miss Novak, who made herself known thanks to capsules (and a herbal tea with soothing properties) on the internet, has set up an innovative method of nutrition, which is inspired by mindfulness meditation, in order to attack overconsumption, junk food and environmental destruction. His contemporary speech of course resonates with his young students, intrigued and seduced by his proposal to eat less and eat better, in order to benefit from it for the body, the mind and the planet.
The teacher takes advantage of the complacency, credulity and blind trust of many parents (notably an ultra-rich couple played by Mathieu Demy and Elsa Zylberstein) towards this school renowned for pushing the limits of its students. These parents say they want the best for their children, from piano and dance lessons to Mandarin and nutrition. This race for “excellence” has a price, recalls Jessica Hausner.
The mysterious Miss Novak exploits the fragilities and gray areas of these adolescents (absent parents, penniless mother or suffering from eating disorders, etc.) in order to better establish herself as a confidante and revolutionary guru. Some more skeptical students leave the group. Most of them embrace the dogma of this Club Zero to fill a void.
Club Zero, presented in competition at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, is a cynical and disturbing metaphor, which can sometimes seem caricatured and simplistic, of what can lead brilliant, but easily influenced and vulnerable people to join a cult. Jessica Hausner effectively dismantles the mechanisms of this process of abandonment of free will. But his film, constructed as a cold, clinical and distant thriller – you’ll excuse the pun – leaves one wanting more.
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Drama
Club Zero
Jessica Hausner
Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Amir El-Masry
1h50
reference: www.lapresse.ca