2023-08-08 19:14:51
Animal **
by Sofia Alaoui
Franco-Moroccan film, 1h30
Funny cinematographic object that this first film of Sofia Alaoui. A fantastic drama haunted by the presence of supernatural forces, an existential road movie of a young pregnant woman setting out to discover herself, or acerbic social criticism of a Moroccan society dominated by patriarchy and money, the director purposely blurs the tracks.
It immerses us in a metaphysical and sensory universe, close to that of Terrence Malick, to better question our place in the world and denounce the ravages of neoliberal capitalism which takes us away from our deep nature.
A disturbing atmosphere, but never hostile
The proposal is daring and could have easily turned into conceptual bric-a-brac if the realization, by its sobriety and its formal inventiveness, did not manage to maintain a constant tension until the outcome of the story. It is carried by the character of Itto, a young Berber woman of modest origin, richly married to the son of a local potentate, and more at ease with servants than with an in-laws aware of their social position and riding on traditions.
Pregnant, forced to drag her boredom through the rooms of a palace as empty as the souls of its inhabitants, she is delighted to see the whole family leave for the neighboring town to enjoy her freedom. But a huge storm rises in the night and, in the morning, the army blocks the roads for an unknown reason, preventing her from leaving to find her husband.
A young woman’s odyssey
Then begins for the panicked young woman an odyssey through the Atlas Mountains to join him, aboard the scooter of a villager who has agreed to come to his aid. Each stage of this initiatory journey, marked by strange supernatural phenomena, will lead her to reconnect with herself and with others.
With very few special effects, Sofia Alaoui manages to create a disturbing, but never hostile atmosphere, and to build through a mystical allegory – the unity of all things – an acid critique of social inequalities and contemporary materialism.
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