In hard times, tough art is called for, and No Beast. So Fierce. (Kein tier. So wild.), Burhan Qurbani’s fearless reinterpretation of the Bard’s already poisonous Richard III, just about fits the bill.
For viewers allergic to Shakespeare, the loud, high-energy film about the lust for power and the love of cruelty crouches in a place between Gangs of Wasseypur and The Godfather with interludes of Pasolini’s Medea. Add a stunning cast representing two Arab families, the Yorks and Lancasters, who war for control over Berlin’s underworld, and you have a powerful, often transgressive film that should find its audience after bowing in the Berlinale Special official section.
This is not the first time that Qurbani, an Afghan-born, long-time resident of Germany, has updated a European classic for the screen. Most recently, his 2020 adaptation of Alfred Doblin’s revered novel Berlin Alexanderplatz was another gangster story and meditation on good and evil. No Beast. So Fierce. (the title comes from the play: “No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity”) implements some similar ideas about taking migrants and minorities out of the ghetto to which Western society has frequently relegated them and highlighting their power – real and symbolic – in an underworld setting. It’s an audacious move that not many directors could pull off, but after the warm-up of Berlin Alexanderplatz, Qurbani lets out all the stops with No Beast. So Fierce.
Emphasizing, not hiding, the film’s theatrical origin, the cast is predominantly composed of experienced stage performers, beginning with Syrian actress Kenda Hmeidan in the main role of the villainously ambitious wannabe king, here reincarnated as the fire-breathing Rashida York. We meet her in a dark, oppressive courtroom where she is defending her out-of-control younger brother Ghazi from the wrath of the Lancasters, the rival clan. While Rashida’s older brother, the gangster king Imad York (Mehdi Nebbou), works toward restoring peace and a bit of order, his ambitious sister treacherously plots to stir up maximum chaos. It is, indeed, the winter of her discontent.
Her endgame is to replace Imad as Queen of Crime, lording it over both Yorks and Lancasters, and she has a lot of fun working her way up the ladder. Enlisting her fawning foster mother Mishal, played with deadly aplomb and a touch of conscience by Palestinian film star Hiam Abbass, to do her killing for her, she quickly rubs out both her brothers, an Lancaster uncle and his son, who was married to the seductive new widow Ghanima Lancaster (Mona Zarreh Hoshyari Khah), and bloodiest deaths of all, the two young Princes who had sought refuge from her onslaught by locking themselves in the Tower. Fat chance.
Amidst the mayhem, Hmeidan seems to grow larger and more complex in the role of Rashida, projecting herself as a lover without revealing any weakness. She verbally seduces Ghanima as they stand beside the dead body of her husband, lying on a stone slab; later their trysts become sexy and physical, containing a diabolical dimension that is never far from the surface.
Rashida’s permanent enemy, however, is the noble blonde Elisabet York (Austrian actress Verena Altenberger, The Best of All Worlds), Imad’s wife and mother of the two ill-fated Princes. Berlin not being big enough for their epic hate, they stage their last face-offs in a desert no-man’s-land that looks like a cross between hell and a battlefield – in any case, a very atmospheric theatrical space. Production designer Jagna Dobesz does a superb job imagining mist-shrouded hellscapes and rocky deserts, where in the more mystical scenes characters rise up from the sand.
Giving the visuals a chaotic buzz, D.P. Yoshi Heimrath sets the bar high on how dramatic lighting can be, from the fuzzy brownish interiors of the courtroom scenes to the Mephistophelean grandeur of the desert washed in tears and blood. The delightful inventivity and driving rhythm of Dascha Dauenhauer’s musical score is impressive throughout, pairing with Philipp Thomas’s editing to keep a firm grip on the viewer for two hours straight – until the final scenes become so metaphysical they brake the momentum considerably at its most critical juncture. A film this fine deserved to close with a greater leap of the imagination.
Director, screenwriter: Burhan Qurbani
Screenwriters: Burhan Qurbani, Enis Maci
Producers: Jochen Laube, Fabian Maubach, Sophie Cocco, Leif Alexis
Cast: Kenda Hmeidan, Verena Altenberger, Hiam Abbass, Mona Zarreh Hoshyari Khah, Mehdi Nebbou
Cinematography: Yoshi Heimrath
Production design: Jagna Dobesz
Costume design: Katazyna Lewinska
Editing: Philipp Thomas
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer
Production companies: Sommerhaus Filmproduktion in association with Madants, Getaway, ZDF, Arte, Arte France Cinéma
World sales: Goodfellas
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Special)
In German
142 minutes
