poverty

Morocco
3.5*

Director:
Nabil Ayouch
Screenwriter:
Jamal Belmahi
Director of Photography:
Hichame Alaouie

Running time: 115 minutes

Original title (French): Les chevaux de Dieu
Original title (Arabic): يا خيل الله‎
Transliterated Arabic title: Ya khail allah

Horses of God, a tale of two best friends who grow up in the slums of Casablanca and eventually escape a life of poverty at great cost, is one that is entirely true, and it offers us a glimpse into the lives of a few men from one neighbourhood who would turn to terrorism to give their lives a sense of direction.

Multiple explosions rocked Morocco’s largest city on May 16, 2003, when suicide bombers wreaked havoc in the city centre, setting off their bombs nearly simultaneously in restaurants frequented by non-Muslims (or apostates, according to them, because they are Muslims mixing with people from other religions). Although the reasons for their actions are not entirely clear, there is enough evidence to support at least a loose connection to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the general sentiment in the Muslim world that the invasions were an attack on a religion rather than a search for so-called terrorists.

Horses of God does an excellent job of depicting the living conditions of the eventual killers. All of them hail from a squatter camp on the outskirts of Casablanca called Sidi Moumen where, even at a young age, life for everyone seems destined to go nowhere, except through brute force. In the opening scene, we meet a boy who calls himself Yashin, after the sportsman he wishes to emulate, the Soviet-era goalkeeper Lev Yashin. His real name is Tarek, and he spends most of his time with his only friend, Nabil. Tarek’s brother, Hamid, is slightly older but full of anger and criminal ambition, and he protects his brother whenever he can by using a chain he carries with him.

But despite Hamid’s aggressive nature, we quickly realise he cares both for his brother and for his place in the family, as he tells his brother not to follow him into the underworld of crime, as he wants to be sure Tarek would take care of his mother if something ever happened to him. Sooner or later, something does happen to Hamid, and when he comes back, many years later, he is calm, accommodating and noticeably more religious.

As a child, he had admonished his brother about his relationship with Nabil by telling him not to “follow [Nabil] around like a monkey.” The importance of these words cannot be overstated, as they are key to our understanding of the events in the last act of the film, and in particular Hamid’s attitude toward his brother’s fast-growing fanaticism. This brand of religious activism, sponsored by an imam with a soothing voice, attracts Tarek because he had been disoriented and unmoored and had little to give his life much meaning (the storyline of the migrant worker Wasim who becomes a suicide bomber in Syriana is equally compelling without eliciting empathy). Tarek had always been the brunt of others’ jokes and actions, and Islam offered him a path on which to walk with others and feel like he had strong support.

Another very significant line is spoken late in the film by Fouad, the brother of Tarek’s love interest Ghislaine, whom he adores but whose attention he always shrinks from out of timidity or fear, contrary to his later views of life (“Whoever fears Allah will not fear any man,” he says). Fouad, who is around the age of 18, is driven through the city towards an area in the mountains where he and his friends will train, when he says, “It’ll be my first time in the city.”

These words should punch us in the gut, as we realise what a complete bubble of isolation these boys have inhabited all their lives in the slums, and the actions they are about to take all spring from the knowledge they have gained without experiencing the real world, and yet they are on the verge of invading that world and blowing it to pieces for completely selfish reasons: to be martyrs and go through the gates of heaven where “hundreds, thousands of Ghislaines” are waiting for them.

But while the depiction of the socio-economic crisis in which all these men find themselves is accomplished, and the cinematography is highly commendable, especially thanks to a sprinkling of breathtaking shots obtained through the use of a Flying Cam that zips across the shantytown as it pursues a particular character, the main character Tarek lacks the depth and expressiveness that would at least interest us in his personal development.

The film is notable not only for its representation of complex reasoning behind the decision to become a martyr in the name of a religion but also for its treatment of some very thorny issues in the Muslim world. It is surprising to see scenes in which the consumption of alcohol is shown to be widespread, and in a hair-raising scene early on, a moment of child-on-child rape is reminiscent of the equally harrowing scene in the 1981 Brazilian film Pixote. At another point in the film, the teenage Nabil looks in a mirror and tries on his mother’s lipstick. The camera doesn’t linger on him, and we don’t get any further explanation, but this sole indication that he has some gender issues, whatever the reason, is a fascinating revelation in an Arabic-language film.

Such scenes enrich the context of the boys’ living environment and go some way towards explaining, or at least illuminating, their reasons for choosing to turn their lives around by blowing themselves up. In this respect, however, it is not the trajectory of Tarek but of his older brother Hamid that is the most interesting, as he shows real self-doubt. Perhaps it is because he is more wise, having experienced much more hardship and dealt with more people in his time. By contrast, Tarek is always serious, never smiles and doesn’t get much of our empathy.

Director Nabil Ayouch’s use of the camera to tell his story is exceptional without it stealing the show, and his development of Hamid’s character is strong and credible. His film also breaks a number of taboos in a way that never has the look of sensationalism, and despite the desperate nature of life in Sidi Moumen, the universal aspects of family, survival and respect ensure the tale is at times very touching, even though we never empathize with the terrorists’ goals.