Dir: Alaeddine Slim | Tunisia, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar · 2024 · DCP 2K · Color · 102′ · o.v. Arabic
A woman emerges from the sea. A shepherd disappears from the hillside in a remote Tunisian coastal town. Local cop Fathi investigates the bizarre events in this arthouse thriller from Alaeddine Slim who melds murder mystery and surreal sci-fi in Agora, a mesmerising follow-up to his award-winning feature debut Tlamess
In the abattoir three macabre corpses await the mortician. Blood seeps from their bodies. Piecing together local gossip Fathi finds out they are victims of a brawl in a massive tanker moored in the port. But the search for shepherd Mabrouk in the bosky backwater reveals no clues.
In his pre-apocalyptic portrait the Tunisian filmmaker makes evocative use of the hostile surroundings: decrepit buildings, contaminated seawater, a dead crow. Rotten veg and putrid fish in the market all bear testament to a failed harvest. The sea is throwing out its dead. Stray dogs are sickening and dying in the creeping malaise.
Then Detective Omar Walli, from Tunis section 19, arrives in town to oversee the investigation and contain the damage. But nobody feels comfortable with his sinister presence. “You can’t trust people from the capital”. says a man in the bar. Indeed. In the privacy of his hotel bedroom Omar defers to a bald, cancer-stricken woman who uses a voice box to issue her instructions.
The slow-burn police procedural is laced with fantasy sci-fi elements serves as a metaphor for global unease. Man has destroyed the environment and the earth is screaming in pain. Police and politicians are corrupt and under the cosh of an enigmatic big brother. Intertitles threaten dire warnings. “No one will be spared!” Meanwhile the mosques spew out a stentorious message that God is great.
A seething soundscape combines ambient sounds of thunder and an inventive electronic score. Neon-infused colours evoke a toxic environment where decay and degradation is endemic. One terrific scene sees birds flying frantically in all directions to escape the farmer’s poisonous fumigation.
The deaths remain unsolved but behind closed doors Omar and his female sidekick pander to an enigmatic cabal with gleaming neon blue eyes and white socks. Sounds weird but it works in this strikingly unusual fantasy thriller from the talented Tunisian auteur, screening in competition at this year’s 77th Locarno Film Festival. @Meredith Taylor
PARDO VERDE AWARD | LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024