Hounds

Viewer Advice: Depictions of violence towards animals.

Bringing echoes of the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino to the mean streets of Morocco, this Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner is not the Casablanca you think you know.

In Casablanca’s hardened underbelly, Hassan and Issam will do whatever it takes to stay alive – even if it means abducting the rival of a local crime boss. But when they accidentally kill their prisoner midway through the job, father and son find themselves in over their heads. They need to get rid of the body, and fast, but deeply spiritual Hassan is keen to follow Islamic burial customs. Issam, meanwhile, just wants to survive the night and the various crooks coming their way.

Revisiting a theme first explored in his award-winning 2014 short The Man With a Dog, Kamal Lazraq’s feature debut is an audacious noir thriller with an ironic and occasionally very dark undercurrent of farce. Working from his own tightly wound, impeccable screenplay, Lazraq has created a magnificently visualised genre film with an almost vérité sensibility; the moody lighting and Amine Berrada’s beautiful camerawork enhance the magnetic intensity of non-professional actors Abdellatif Masstouri and Ayoub Elaïd. As the clock ticks and Hassan and Issam slip ever further into danger, the tension piles on towards a compelling, nail-biting finale.

“Assured and energetic … A notably punchy debut, both visceral and confidently cavalier in its depiction of everyday underworld brutality, with a sharp, streetlit sense of place.” – Variety