52 Films by Women Vol 8. 1. Animalia (Director: Sofia Alaoui)

 Still courtesy of Wrong Films / SRAB Films / Ad Vitam Distribution

If something bad is happening, animals generally know before humans. They either smell or hear it first. Humans are too into themselves to notice. They are the ones chasing their tails. The French Moroccan film Animalia, written and directed by Sofia Alaoui, is about an event that causes people to disappear and the communications network to fracture. Alaoui’s protagonist, Itto (Oumaima Barid) is heavily pregnant, a condition that can cause men to disappear and communication to fracture. She observes animals, particularly dogs and birds, behaving unusually.

Itto has married into a rich family and would be happy but for the disapproving gaze of her mother-in-law. In the kitchen wanting to help, Itto hacks awkwardly at raw poultry, the sleeve of her fine gown flapping over raw meat. Mother-in-law is not impressed. ‘Go and get changed,’ Itto is told. We watch her apply eyeliner, a moment that made me wince.  At the family dinner, her husband Amine (Mehdi Dehbi) announces that he is on his way to becoming the region’s biggest poultry farmer. His father is happy. Ever the dutiful wife, Itto attempts to serve Amine first but causes a spillage in the process. We cringe.

While Amine’s father watches a football match on a large screen television, the women watch a melodrama on their computer or, in Itto’s case, her mobile phone. All happy families are alike, right? Alaoui opens her film with a series of impeccably centred shots: the front of the house with its modest fountain, the two closed front doors, the fountains inside trickling water. I hope for the sake of visitors that the toilet is nearby. At one point, we see Itto sit down to urinate and hear the release; the foley artist earned their session fee.

The family all have some place to go, except Itto. She lies down on the family’s expansive couch, one sandal off, the other in the air, and watches television on her mobile phone whilst eating fruit pieces from a plastic tube, the Moroccan equivalent of living your best life. (No alcohol; I approve.) However, there appears to be an atmospheric change; the clouds are sucked upwards. Military vehicles roar past her home. ‘Stay indoors,’ Itto is told. The phone network is disrupted. Finally, Amine calls her. ‘We can’t make it back,’ he explains. ‘We are prevented from doing so.’ Amine has an idea. ‘The neighbour will take you to Khouribga.’ She can meet him there. Preparing for a long journey as only an abandoned wife could – she goes to the safe and takes out a thick wad of banknotes – Itto is disappointed that her neighbour wants to bring his family. ‘I’m terribly sorry, I can’t leave them.’ ‘But they won’t fit in the tricycle’, complains Itto, referring to the three-wheeled vehicle that is commonly used on Morocco’s dusty roads. ‘I’m very sorry,’ repeats the neighbour.

As the three wheeled truck continues on its journey, Itto consults her phone. ‘This isn’t the way to Khouribga,’ she tells her neighbour. ‘Yes, it is,’ he insists, ‘I’m going through the mountains to avoid checkpoints.’ They stop off at a village. Itto is no longer fooled. ‘We’ve been travelling south.’ She follows her neighbour into a café where he orders a cup of tea. ‘Take me to Khouribga.’ ‘Stay here, someone will take you.’ ‘But my husband has paid you. Where’s your honour?’ Itto gives him more money. ‘I’ll take you to Khouribga,’ he assures her. No sooner has she walked away than he and his family are back in the three-wheeler (which she reminded him belongs to her family) and they are out of there. Itto has no choice but to stay in a hotel.

Given something very strange is going on, the villagers are non-plussed. Instead, they regard Itto with suspicion. She pays for a room (price: 150 dirhams). ‘Keep the change,’ she tells reception. She enters a dingy room with two low single beds, accompanied by a dog who has suddenly become her new best friend. A man, Fouad (Fouad Oughaou) knocks on the door, offering her something to eat. ‘I’d like two omelettes, one for him,’ she says pointing to the dog. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Fouad tells her. ‘Come and stay with my mother and sister.’ Itto refuses.

Disobeying the basic rule of hospitality that you shouldn’t use a curtain tie as a dog lead, Itto does exactly that. By this time, she has seen dogs on roofs looking in one direction as if waiting for a sign. Outside, a man tells her that the dogs are all behaving in a threatening manner. Her dog is the same. As if on cue, the dog bites the stranger, who falls to the ground. Itto rushes to his aid. He does not appear to be conscious, but then he gets up. ‘I’m all right,’ he tells Itto who by this point is discombobulated. The bite seems to have done something to the man’s mood, as if he had been injected with a sedative. He is more cheerful. It is a strange scene, but things will get stranger.

The film is in both French and Berber, the latter a signifier of Itto’s low birth. ‘Ah, you can speak Berber,’ Fouad exclaims after Itto attempts to steal his three-wheeled van, having snuck into his garage, finding the keys to his three-wheeler, sitting astride it and foot-starting it into life before being stopped in mid-revolution. ‘I need to get to Khouribga’, she explains. ‘But how will I deliver the barley?’ Fouad asks. Itto offers him money. ‘Ha, you rich people. You think you can solve things with money?’ (Well, yes.) Fouad tosses the notes onto the ground. Itto appeals to him in her native tongue. After convincing her to get off his delivery trike, Fouad promises to take her after he has delivered the barley, which is transported in blue plastic sacks and actually – let’s be honest – doesn’t look legal.

Unlike her neighbour, Fouad is honourable. He drops off the barley and he and Itto spend the night with the recipients. They dine, and Itto doesn’t have to pretend to be refined. By the time they set off the next day, Itto has explained that her in-laws disapprove of her, but she isn’t the bourgeois idle rich woman he thinks she is. Not that she has ambitions above being a good wife and mother to a chicken processor. However, she acknowledges her humble upbringing.

On the way, the pair pick up a young male hitchhiker. At this point, the film gets weird. He too is heading for Khouribga, which by this point appears to be Morocco’s equivalent to New York City. He explains that he was previously minding his sheep. He does not explain why he no longer needs to do so. He also says that he is seven years old. Itto is incredulous. Never mind his claim, the kid could be a psycho. At a certain point, Fouad stops the three-wheeler. He and Itto stare at the mysterious weather event, the edges of the frame blurred. The hitchhiker stands behind them. The trio have a psychotropic experience. And there I was thinking so-called barley was the problem.

By this point, a bird had flown behind the three-wheeler as if to follow it. The angry dog that Itto briefly befriended was left behind and chased the three-wheeler. In one memorable image, six dogs are gathered in a circle as if partaking in a chin wag – or a tail wag.

The extraordinary events prompt Itto to turn to religion, at one point putting on a headscarf before praying, and removing it afterwards. Fouad is irreligious. ‘God is for rich people’, he explains, the deity having forsaken the poor. ‘You say you worship God. But you really worship money.’ All valid points. Itto promotes faith as a means of dealing with weird stuff. To some extent, she attributes her marriage upwards to God. That generally happens for ceremonious purposes.

Eventually, they make it to Khouribga, where they encounter the military. Itto and Amine are reunited.

At this point, I have to confess that boredom had set in. Alaoui Is only partially interested in the visitation, which is suggested to be extra-terrestrial in nature, if graffiti is to be believed. And if graffiti is to be believed, Kilroy had amazing access to transport, being ‘here’ in dozens of cities and countries.

Although there is the suggestion that the fabric of society is breaking down, Amine’s family has the most amazing feast. Amine’s mother drops a tray of salad, which counts as the Fourth Act Dark Point.

In the film’s finale, men and women prey separately. Fouad and the hitchhiker join the men. Itto’s waters break, causing her to rush towards her husband, thus upsetting the men. In the film’s coda, the baby is born and is raised by Itto. There is the suggestion that this is new life in a transformed society, ants causing people to slow down. I wondered briefly whether the film had inadvertently started rumours about bedbugs in French hotel rooms, which was to the French summer what Barbie was in most other countries.

Alaoui has crafted a film about the breakdown of society that is defined by a lack of urgency or threat. Images of empty streets briefly reminded me of zombie apocalypse films such as 28 Days Later and I am Legend. There is a critique of the class system, but it doesn’t have any weight. After all, Animalia only exists because of investment from a rich first-world country (France). Alaoui’s film is ambitious, but it doesn’t really resonate. It is more a film about having faith in people rather than deities or wealth. In the UK, Animalia is enjoying exposure on the film festival circuit. It is unlikely to get a cinema release.

Reviewed at Leeds International Film Festival, Sunday 5 November 2023. Screened at Vue the Light, Screen Eleven, 15:15.