The Clan: Director Pablo Trapero Discusses the True Story Behind the Movie

On March 15, members of the KCET Cinema Series audience had the chance to check out the hit Argentinian crime drama, "The Clan," days before it opens for the public in Los Angeles. Directed by Pablo Trapero, "The Clan" depicts the true story of a series of kidnappings that took place in Argentina in the early 1980s. 

The award-winning drama, which centers around a seemingly ordinary family harboring grisly secrets, was also Argentina's submission for the Oscars. Director Trapero joined the audience for a question-and-answer session led by Pete Hammond, host of the KCET Cinema Series as well as the awards editor and columnist for Deadline Hollywood. 

The KCET Cinema Series is sponsored by E. Hofert Dailey Trust and gives audiences the opportunity to see advance screenings accompanied by question-and-answer sessions with the minds behind the movies. The 2016 spring season has already screened "Eye in the Sky," "Hello, My Name Is Doris" and "The Bronze." 

The following is an edited portion of Pablo Trapero's discussion of "The Clan." 

Pablo Trapero on his own recollections of the kidnappings depicted in "The Clan" and how that inspired the film. 

At that time, in '85, I was 13 years old, but I remember the headline about this family who kidnapped their friends, at home, and killed them. It's not easy to forget news like that.

At the same time I started my high school, it was the same time democracy arrived, so it was a key moment in my life and, of course, our life in Argentine. 

Much years after, when I became a director, I always think about the story as a starting point for a fiction and only when I was finishing my movie "Leonera"-- "Lion's Den" in English-- I started to work on it to make my own research. I realized that-- even when it was a very famous case back then, for my generation we all know or heard about it-- there was not too much information about the intimacy family, about what happened inside. Of course, we have some, a lot of, information about the crime side of it. We have access to the files. We talked to, for example, Alejandro's friends, the trainers, people from San Isidro, the neighborhood. We talked with, for example, the relatives of the victims, the family of the victims. 

On speaking with the family of the victims while researching the films. 

I can tell that it was kind of easy because somehow, they were expecting for someone to say or do something about it. 

That was also a surprise for me. When I went into the research, I was expecting to find books, much more information. We had to recreate it all by ourselves, which was an amazing process, but, at the same time, it was very intense. Try to imagine yourself talking to the ex-wife of Aulet [one of the Puccio family's victims] or the brother of Manukian [another victim of the Puccios].  The real people that were in those very places, pulling the money or on the other side of the phone talking with Arquímedes.  It was very moving for us and my crew to be close to them. Somehow, the film is kind of an homage to them because they were fighting for years to get justice done. The whole process took something like six or seven years. 

On getting Guillermo Francella, a famous Argentinian comedian, to play the film's lead real-life villain. 

I did try to make this movie for years. As I told you, I started in 2007. Only in 2012, I announced the project and we financed it in 2014. It took almost seven years because, you know, it's not a comedy... it's not an easy-going movie. It took a while to put everything together. 

Try to imagine, when I talked to the producers, and I told them, listen, I want to have this guy doing this villain. 

I went to Guillermo, even before we finished the final draft, in order to understand if he was ready to do it because, as you say, it's really different. He can't walk on the street because he's very popular, not only for movies, but for TV shows, for plays and he's, most of the time, playing this comedian and he's very poplar. 

When I first met Guillermo for this movie, I told him, listen, this is not only about not doing a comedy, but it's about creating a villain, someone to horrify the audience. Are you ready for that? He told me, immediately, yes. 

That was great news for me because I could share the part of this search with him, the writing process of the final draft, which was very useful for the writer's side as well as for him, as an actor, because it was showing him all these things I was learning through the process. 

For him, it was also a big challenge in terms of performing because, as you can imagine, as an actor with the timing of comedy, with the timing of this kind of character, we had to go exactly the other way. He changed his way of walking, also the base of the reading, everything. 

On Arquímedes Puccio.

At the time that we announced the production, in 2012, I was involved in a project somewhere in India. Arquímedes himself went to the media to say, I want to meet Trapero to tell him the real story because all they were saying all these years is bull shit. There's nothing real. By the time I came back home, he passed away. I didn't have this chance to talk to him. He denied everything until he died. He never asked forgiveness. He never talked with the victims. For example, other characters, I mean, person, wrote some letters. They made this process to be somehow..trying to somehow fix what they did. 

On the reaction of the victim's families. 

They came to the premiere and it was very moving because, as you could imagine, it was a moment for them. At the same time, they took it as a kind of…closing act. They say, this is the real justice we have. Apart from the trial and blahblahblah, this is the real way to show the people who these people were, mostly Arquímedes. So, they were very moved about that. They say, they were horrified by Francella's interpretation because it was, "I met the guy. I've seen the guy. I was the guy who was on the other side of the line. I've seen him walking down the street, taking the money." and all of that. For them, it was kind of a flashback of their own tragedy. 

On comparisons to "The Godfather" and Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino films. 

It's an honor to be compared to them. Of course, The Godfather, Scorsese's movies, Quentin Tarantino's movies are an inspiration for me. Before I became a filmmaker, I'm a spectator. I'm still an ordinary spectator. I love to be there (points to the audience). Sometimes, when you're in production or working, you don't have that much time to do it….I learned from the films I love and the films that somehow put me in this decision, in this amazing job, movie-making. 

On the music used in the film. 

The music was something else, you could say, for a different reason. It helped us recreate the '80s. We have the songs from '82, '83, etc. were the songs that were hits at that time, so it was really helpful to recreate that atmosphere. Then, through researching, we learned that they used the music as we see in the scenes with both meanings…a torture process, but, at the same time to cover, to hide the shouts of the victims. They used it like that and they don't use their own records, they just leave the radio on so where they were, in the basement, were the hits for that time. 

In another way, it was also a way to portray how cold they were because they weren't paying attention to what was on the radio, it was just things that, at that time, were all over the place. 

In some scenes, we mixed the music kind of loud, maybe much louder than recommended, again, to put ourselves in the victims positions where the music could be an annoyance sometimes. It also something about that period. When democracy came back, this music was allowed for the radio. For some previous time, rock 'n' roll was forbidden. After the Malvinas War, the English music on some radio stations was forbidden also, so it has different layers. 

On how his perception of the case changed while researching the film. 

Yes, a lot. Alejandro was this guy, was famous, was charming, was likable, was loved. He was a star on the team. The people from San Isidro loved him because he was not only was he a star, he was a kind of good example. He didn't drink. He was very formal. 

When I first got this news, I thought it was a part of a myth because it makes the news more interesting. When we went deep into researching, it was for real. For years, some of the friends in the club were supporting him, believing that he was innocent. 

Until the moment five or six years after, as proof for the trial, they got this notebook from Arquímedes and one of these friends were on the list. Until that moment, they were really supporting him. It took years for the people close to them, mostly to Alejandro, to accept what happened. 

It's really hard to understand how somebody like [Alejandro] with all the talent and the choices, with all the things he could have made, he did this.