When it was first released in Argentina, Pablo Trapero’s film had the highest opening box-office of all time. The key to that success is simply that The Clan is based on one of the most shocking crimes in the country’s history, the Puccio Clan case. In 1985, the news broke that the Puccios, a well-established Catholic family with five children from San Isidro, an upper-class suburb of Buenos Aires, kidnapped and held people hostage for ransom in their own home. The film is a disturbing, impressive, and beautifully controlled interpretation of those events, with Guillermo Francella’s magnificent depiction of the father, a performance for the ages.
