The films of Jessica Hausner are cold petri dishes where we may observe a live specimen of romantic idealistic passions yearning for purpose. And it usually doesn’t end well for them, but at least they maintained their own sense of individuality or remained true to themselves.
Club Zero (2023, Jessica Hausner) is an eating disorder comedy. Okay no it’s not really that exactly I know I can’t say that. But it does open with a trigger warning due to its depiction of eating disorders. And eating disorders are no laughing matter, yet there is something uncomfortably funny about human behavior and the extremes we’re sometimes capable of.
The zeitgeist of Club Zero is social elitism; and in a most wonderful way it doesn’t pathologize it in a manner that explores its causes. Instead, we see its symptoms. So, what’s the premise? Something like a small group of high schoolers enroll in a class where their cult leader-like teacher indoctrinates them into not eating anymore. As in ever.
And I point this out as social elitism because what’s the biggest movie right now? Dune: Part Two (2024, Denis Villeneuve) is and just happens to be sold based on its 2 leads Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya neither weighing over 100 lbs each. Skinny isn’t the new sexy, but it’s back again. In Club Zero the aim of the class is to stop eating because your body doesn’t need food. So is the resultant being emaciated the underlying reward: thin as attractive a way to achieve being better than everyone else?
ELSA is the ringleader. She’s the most dedicated; but also has a history of being bulimic before she’s enrolled in the class. And her mother seems to subtly approve of it maybe, and even seemingly at times herself believe weight loss is worth an eating disorder. Elsa has these rich parents where for her not eating is also a form of rebellion, which suggests this dynamic where someone who has it all goes on a hunger strike for her own convictions she’s fully dedicated to but not for us to comprehend. That for me says it all. It’s about the modern struggle for individuality. And I’m not just talking about food here.
But Hausner’s other kids in the class don’t all fit into a mold. There’s the kid from a working class household who wants a scholarship and doesn’t buy the core beliefs; the girl (with dyed punk streaks and combat boots) who says she’s all in but secretly eats behind everyone else’s back; the guy whose family keeps him at a distance (also the neck tattoo and possibly latent twink) hint at other examples of the search to define or create one’s own identity or indicators of individuality.
Anyway Club Zero isn’t exactly a comedy, although it is obviously satire. At first I thought these kids were something to laugh at, but I realized that wasn’t the case at all. And I’ve too often already encountered the narrative about how a cult can occur so gradually as to be totally unbeknownst to the few in it before it’s too late, but this is more than that. I think it’s about how youth and its requisite currency as means to being ahead of anyone else in knowing what’s cool or chic or whatever comes with its own cost, as some kind of moral lesson. Either way I gotta say it’s kind of lame the way they ripped off the Barton Fink (1991, Joel Coen) ending though.
04/03/2024 Plaza Theatre
Atlanta, GA
DCP
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