Our review of Club Zero: Mental Manipulation

“Mindful eating”: that’s how she puts it. How to oppose it? Miss Novak is hired at a posh boarding school in the middle of nowhere to teach students responsible eating. We would give him the good Lord without confession. Bob haircut, XXL jacket, polo shirt buttoned up to the neck, she seems stuck in her certainties. The students are teenagers. Their shoulders are hunched, you don't feel very comfortable in their skin. And then this uniform with which we dressed them: yellow polo shirt, short pants or beige culottes, purple knee-high socks.

Miss Novak explains to them that rich countries suffer from a food surplus. She teaches them to inhale and exhale between each bite. A small circle follows it to the letter. They drink up his words. It is urgent to save the planet, to regain control of our body. Little by little, the teacher isolates them from their classmates. Throbbing music accompanies the action: banjo, drum. The notes stand out like the gestures, slowly. Miss Novak offers her herbal tea to the school principal. Parents observe the results sympathetically; they are far away. The nutritionist weaves her web. He's the kind of person who deconstructs you with a smile. Follow my gaze.

Eating becomes a wrongdoing; a crime against humanity. Ben is recalcitrant. She belittles him in the eyes of the group. Everyone is laconic. She organizes scenes of silent meditation. “Hum, hum, hum,” the students chant around her. It smacks of a cult. We move on to the next step: monodiet. Fred chats with his parents on video. He is diabetic. They live in Ghana. The manipulator plays on the imbalances of each person, their feeling of guilt. Ragna's parents are perfect bobos. They are concerned but definitely don’t want to appear reactionary; Elsa's father doesn't understand anything about it. Her mother dreams of losing weight and observes her with a knowing eye. Elsa Zylberstein is wonderful as a brainless bourgeoisie. Every scene in the film stands out like the teenagers in their family.

Also read “To stop eating is to demonstrate”: when a director takes an interest in victims of sects

Reality recedes. Everything is framed, millimetered like in Magritte's paintings. From the plates in the canteen to the plastic chairs in the hospital, the decor is bathed in a greenish yellow. In scholarly language, we call this “goose poop”. It's the color of vomit. Sorry to be a little direct. “You can live without eating,” Miss Novak blurts. Ben's mother senses the danger rising. She lives alone with her son whose attendance at college depends on a scholarship. She comes to knock on the door of the principal's office. Miss Dorset doesn't want waves.

Strict bun and multi-row necklace, Sidse Babett Knudsen embodies it with majesty. The blindness of the parents is astonishing: “She bewitched us,” say two students while fleeing Miss Novak. The guru invites her last disciples to be part of a mysterious “Club Zero”. Family meals are scary. The children no longer touch their plate. It is on Christmas Eve that everything will end. There will be no miracle. The gifts will remain under the tree. A warning precedes this film to advise against it for people with eating problems. We will recommend it to others; to everyone else. It is a masterpiece of chilling lucidity. We stagger out of it, our stomachs in knots.

The Note of Figaro: 3/4