Red Path assessment – Tunisian drama tells aggravating tale of Islamic State’s horrific cruelty

A low cloud of distress and horror settles in this sombre film from Tunisian writer-director Lotfi Achour, impressed by way of a brutal tournament in his nation from 2015. A teenage shepherd referred to as Mabrouk Soltani was once murdered and beheaded on Mount Mghila in central Tunisia by way of participants of Jund al-Khilafah (“soldiers of the caliphate”), the Tunisian department of Islamic State, which habitually hides out in that far flung, rugged area. They videoed their ugly murder, claiming the boy was once a military undercover agent and ordered his terrified 14-year-old cousin, who was once with him, to hold the severed head again to his village as a brutal “message” – and this boy obeyed, in a bothered state of trauma that may handiest be guessed at. This frightening tournament was once to suppose the standing of nationwide scandal in Tunisia two years later when the sufferer’s elder brother was once additionally murdered by way of IS in the similar position and at the identical pretext. (Four jihadis had been convicted in 2019 and some other 45 in absentia.)

Achour’s movie centres at the first tournament, whilst expecting the second one. Achraf (Ali Helali) is going up the mountain together with his older cousin Nizar (Yassine Samouni), who brings his goats there as a result of it’s the handiest position with water for the herd to drink – and since it’s stunning. The nightmarish assault ensues and the village is going into deep surprise; the pinnacle is stored in a fridge and regardless of the most obvious threat of some other assault, Nizar’s brother grimly resolves to guide a birthday party of volunteers, together with Achraf, again up into the mountain to recuperate the remainder of the frame so Nizar can also be given a right kind burial. All the whilst the heartless and prurient press accumulate at his house.

The tone appears to be balanced between tragic and macabre, and to start with it kind of feels as though Achraf will elevate the pinnacle within the bag again into his group and, in a state of profound surprise, would possibly even pass right into a state of denial about what has took place. That isn’t the case – or no longer precisely. Once the grim reality is disclosed, he has to speak to the girl with whom deficient Nizar was once hopelessly and unrequitedly in love, and this trauma brings her along side Achraf. He additionally has hallucinatory encounters and conversations with Nizar, which I believe don’t fully paintings and convey the movie as regards to one of those emollient delusion size. However the film is easily acted, and truthfully makes an attempt to surround the insufferable grief suffered by way of the circle of relatives, even supposing the atypical part of poser and the hateful political malice of IS, specifically with the second one homicide, can’t in point of fact be represented.