The Cannibal Club Movie Review

The Cannibal Club centers on aristocratic Brazilionaires who delve in an underworld of murder and fine human delicacy. A husband and wife, Octavio and Gilda, are having marital issues like any other couple, just with a taste for human flesh. The film opens with their first victim, the pool boy, and we see them progress from slaughter to digestion. Through shady politicians and businessmen, we learn about a secret club for elite men and Octavio is invited to the party; but Gilda is not happy about that—she wants to eat with the boys too.

Listening to a room full of suited-up South American aristocrats hammer on about being in a “Third World” and yearning for the “First World” lifestyle makes me quiver. That’s the real horror in this film, not the cannibalism. Knowing that these kinds of people are leading a country and sucking the life out of it is scary. There are immense amounts of people in those countries living in such dire environments, to the point where people are in need of hydration and seeing a dead body is a daily occurrence. That’s scary. Read some South American literature, Gabriel García Márquez for instance, if you’re interested about the real South American struggle.

After experiencing the film Cannibal Club, I have mixed feelings. On a positive note, the pacing is swift (with the shorter-than-average running time), the acting is believable and tension is high. There are moments where silence pierces through louder than any sound can make. The problem is these small spots of shine are not transcending enough to make this a good film. It is not a bad film by any means, but it is something I’d never revisit again.

Why, you ask? I begin to hit the steep slope about 1/3 through and start to fall off track. Throughout the film, which clocks in at an hour and twenty minutes, the spiraling out of control elitists are not characters one wants to like, nor is there any pity felt for them. I ask myself, why make a film with such hedonistic characters and not one likeable person? (I guess we’d normally call them protagonists, where here they’re just elitists who can do what they please.) I’m going to assume it’s to teach us to not be like these characters, AKA don’t eat people and be an asshole.