 Dir. Joao Machado, 87 mins While I do have a list of movies I want to get to and review, there are times when I do a bit of wandering around the internet to try and find something that isn’t on that list. It’s always worth exploring, and you often stumble across something interesting that way. Enter The Champagne Club, a relatively unknown movie shot in Brazil with a cast of five and directed by then-newcomer Joao Machado – in fact, this remains his only feature film. Purported to be ‘based on the letters written by Jonathan Hacke, an artist and mental patient at a psychiatric institution’, this one was certainly quite a ride. Honestly I couldn’t find anything further about this Jonathan Hacke, but given what I just saw those letters might be quite the read. The storyline itself sees four figures from the art scene descend upon a huge mansion miles from civilisation – we have art dealer and gallery owner Bruce Wallace and his wife Connie, young, stifled artist Tim Miles and his girlfriend May Donahue, heir to an arts fortune. Of course they all enjoy the finer things in life, and it’s not long before their vacation turns to grotesque excess. The group are rarely seen without a bottle of champagne in sight, and what begins as a relatively harmless jaunt of drinking, fine food and easy days soon turns unpleasant. The seclusion and the privilege to do what you want certainly brings out the dark side in our quartet… I don’t want to oversell this movie, because although it is an interesting concept, and certainly has its moments, I came away ultimately feeling pretty ambivalent towards it. The actors certainly give it plenty – Brian Donovan as Tim Miles in particular looks like he never slept once during the shoot, portraying his character’s growing isolation and disillusionment really well. The other three actors around him also go at losing their minds with real gusto, each of them descending from the childish play of the chronically spoilt to genuinely vindictive and destructive behaviour as the movie wears on. I think the issue for me comes in the fact that the characterisation is too weak – the cast are introduced in a little montage at the start of the movie, probably no more than 90 seconds. It’s not a bad idea in itself, but ultimately that’s about all we get in terms of who they are, and we have overdone stereotypes rather than well-rounded protagonists here. As such, it leaves the various slips into madness feeling hollow, because we don’t really know WHY it happens the way it does. If the characters were more fully set up and explored, the chinks in their psychological armour established, then this could have been an absolute cracker of a film. As it is, things can feel more than a little random, and scenes sort of string together and drift along without that much meaning attached to them. Individually there are scenes that are funny, and scenes that are weird, and one or two scenes that are genuinely gross. But it’s hard to really know where it’s all going, or ultimately to figure out what it all means. Maybe there’s some sort of rumination on the nature of art here, but it’s muddy at best. If it is inspired by the letters of this Hacke character, it might explain just why the movie feels so disjointed and chaotic – but I can’t just give it a pass on those grounds. RATING: 5.5/10. I have to give credit for some things here – the director has obviously come in here with a vision, and I think has largely delivered it, thanks to the efforts of a cast absolutely full committed to deliver it. There are some strong visuals throughout, and if you like things that are pretty experimental then you might find this one up your street. Those of you who are regular readers will know that I like something a bit different, and The Champagne Club certainly qualifies as that. Still, with all that said, I can’t say that it honestly sticks the landing on everything, and there were phases where I found my attention wandering a little. I wouldn’t say that I regretted watching it, but equally I don’t think that I’m going to be rushing back for a rewatch any time soon.   TGHE HEART AND SOUL OF EXTREME HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS |
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