A dark nervous energy suffuses Kamal Lazraq’s moody debut feature Hounds, a slow-burn, compelling drama about a father-son duo tasked with a kidnapping that goes awry. Made with non-profs whose hardscrabble faces lend more than a touch of authenticity – the director draws parallels with Pasolini’s actors, which is entirely appropriate – the film largely takes place over the course of a long night amongst the underbelly of Casablanca, shot with enormous atmosphere and very little light by d.o.p. Amine Berrada (Banel and Adama, also in this year’s Cannes). Weaving together questions of masculinity, parental responsibility, religion and the absence of opportunity for those on the lowest rung of society, all packaged tightly into a failed caper story with film noir elements, Hounds will benefit from its Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, sure to lead to significant festival play.
The opening dog fight sets the tone with its muscular drive: Dib (Abdellah Lebkiri) is furious his pooch lost the fight so orders Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) to kidnap his rival’s henchman. Hassan isn’t much of a thinker, his well-worn face speaking of years of hardship, so he ropes in his son Issam (Ayoub Elaid) to help. Lazraq gives us just enough of their home life to get a sense of their difficult existence in cramped quarters with Hassan’s mother, barely able to afford anything but offal. Father and son kidnap their target but bungle the operation and the guy suffocates in the trunk; Dib is furious and orders them to drive into the countryside and have M’Jid (Abdelhak Saleh) get rid of the corpse. Issam isn’t happy with the plan, urging his father to go to the cops, even offering to sacrifice himself, but Hassan is slow-witted and used to following orders from underworld bosses. When they get to the destination, M’Jid tells them he doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore, suggesting they bury the body in the nearby wasteland.
The rest of the night is spent attempting to ditch the body. The ground is too hard to dig so they try to dispose of it in the sea with the help of alcoholic fisherman Larbi (Lahcen Zaimouzen), but this too gets bungled. Father and son then seek help among the city’s shady nighttime denizens, including one who first insists the body be given proper Muslim treatment with washing and a shroud: manslaughter is less problematic than forgoing required religious rites. There’s also a suspicious character clearly of a superior class who offers to let them bury the corpse in his garden; the scene has an uncomfortable sexual tension whose unsavory gay predator vibe is the film’s one major misstep.
For Issam the night becomes an unwanted rite-of-passage: they can bathe the corpse, but no amount of water will ever wash away the stench of their crime. His attempt to upend the traditional generational flow and assume the paternal mantel his slow-witted father isn’t able to provide is a failure, kyboshed by more powerful forces of criminality, patriarchy and disenfranchisement that inexorably drag him under. Dawn’s arrival brings neither succor nor salvation, just the cold realization that he’s on his own.
Lazraq cast his performers from the same social strata as the characters and it shows, most especially in Masstouri’s deeply-etched face. His look of perplexity speaks of decades of deprivation, knocked about by life so often that as projected onto Hassan, he’s no longer capable of thinking strategically. Elaid is equally effective as his guileless son, cognizant of right and wrong but incapable of exerting control of a situation he was never equipped to handle.
Handheld grainy camerawork naturally conveys the feeling of illicit dealings and jagged nerves, but it’s the way the night scenes are lit that especially captures the notion of danger just beyond the light’s reach. Nowhere is this clearer than in the wasteland scene when father and son attempt to get rid of the corpse: spotlight by car lights, with shadowy figures fleetingly caught in its beam, the sense of dread inhabits not just the inky blackness but the unknown spaces just outside the frame.
Director: Kamal Lazraq
Screenplay: Kamal Lazraq
Cast: Ayoub Elaid, Abdellatif Masstouri, Mohamed Hmimsa, Abdellah Lebkiri, Lahcen Zaimouzen, Salah Bensalah, Mohammed Kharbouchi, Hicham Bidar, Abdellah Bensaid, Abdelhak Saleh, Mohamed Jenkher, Amine Aboudrar
Producer: Saïd Hamich Benlarbi Co-producers: Diana Elbaum, David Ragonig
Cinematography: Amine Berrada
Costume designers: Bouchra El Ouali, Meriem Lahmini
Editing: Héloïse Pelloquet, Stéphane Myczkowski
Music: P.R2B
Sound: Thomas Van Pottelberge, Thibaud Rie, Philippe Charbonnel
Production companies: Barney Production (France), Mont Fleuri Production (Morocco), Beluga Tree (Belgium)
World sales: Charades
Venue: Cannes (Un Certain Regard)
In Arabic
94 minutes
