'The Iron Clan': a great director turns the pathos of wrestling into tragedy

There is always something tragic in pathos.

In a body full of nandrolone, excessive muscles, plastic appearance, veins about to burst.

In an American wrestling match and its surroundings, in the falsity of the bravado of the contestants on television days before the event, in the cardboard of the ring, in the exaggeration of the fights, in that choreographic theater of synthetic vigor and simple stupidity.

But what is inside the minds and hearts of those fighters?

How do their lives go, where do they come from and where are they going?

What is true in them?

Sean Durkin, one of the best unknown directors of the last decade, a name still to be established in the general public, just three films in 12 years, has asked himself this question in the excellent

The Iron Clan,

a title based on real events, around to the Von Erich brothers throughout the first half of the eighties.

Four pathetic and tragic kids.

Four exciting kids.

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It is curious that two of the best films with a sports atmosphere, a dramatic aspect and a mysteriously disturbing background in recent years have been about fighting and have been directed by relatively young and not very prolific filmmakers with a look that is as uncomplacent with the environment as it is affectionate with its creatures.

The extraordinary

Foxcatcher

(2014), by Bennett Miller, winner of the best director award at the Cannes festival, about Olympic wrestling and also inspired by a true story, and this one by Durkin end up talking about much more than sport because they delve so much into the within their contenders as well as in the social and moral mass that elevates them.

There is in

The Iron Clan

a sharp reflection on the white tradition of deep America in the eighties.

The holy trinity in the Von Erich house, with a very tough father, one of those who pour out their own frustrations on their children because he did not manage to be a world champion and now wants to be one through his pupils, is made up of firearms, Christian crucifixes and sports trophies.

In the living room, a triumvirate dominates, making them lead a life that has a lot of artifice and representation, but also dignity.

And tragic events occur in their lives, marked by Durkin in the second part of the story by a dim light and ocher colors that distinguish the gloomy character of their existences.

The four Von Erich brothers: from left, Harris Dickinson, Zac Efron, Stanley Simons and Jeremy Allen White.

Born in Canada, raised in the United Kingdom and forged cinematographically in the United States, Durkin began his career with

Martha Marcy May Marlene

(2011), a powerful meditation on the madness of sects as a refuge for cornered young people or in existential crisis, and after directing the magnificent television miniseries

Southcliffe

(2013) he had only made one more feature film:

The Nest

(2021), a disturbing social drama at the heights of power, with a

horror

thriller look and enormous artistic expressiveness.

A cinematographic personality in the narration and in the staging that returns again in

The Iron Clan,

especially in a second half of the story that is distressing due to its events, but even more so due to its narrative and its planning.

And in that sense there are two dazzling moments: the ellipsis after the nighttime motorcycle escape of Jeremy Allen White's character, and the long shot in the kitchen, subtle and masterful, frontal and in slight angle, while he takes the milk from the refrigerator;

and the happy reunion of the brothers in the field during the twilight of the day.

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With the help of a wonderful cast (along with Allen White, star of

The Bear,

there are Holt McCallany, of

Mindhunter,

the disturbing British Harris Dickinson and the dramatic revelation of Zac Efron), Durkin composes his story in a somber tone not without tenderness, and chooses the most difficult path for a story about the apparent humbug of wrestling: treating in a serious, respectful and serious way what could be close to funny comedy.

And, in doing so, he makes tragic and transcendent what was initially only pathetic.

the iron clan

Director:

Sean Durkin.

Starring:

Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Holt McCallany. 

Genre:

drama.

USA, 2023.

Duration:

130 minutes.

Premiere: March 15.

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