Michael Leader explores the Safdie-esque nature of the father-son duo at the heart of Hounds as a lens through which to examine the film's astute diagnosis of the dark underbelly of Moroccan society.
Some days you just can’t get rid of a body. And yet that’s the plight of Hassan and Issam, a father-son duo who find themselves shouldering that Sisyphean task across one absurdly eventful night in the suburbs of Casablanca. Writer-director Kamal Lazraq’s crime thriller, the Jury Prize winner in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2023, draws equally from film noir and Italian Neorealism in its examination of masculinity in the margins of Moroccan society, where its desperate characters are trapped in cycles of petty crime, with little hope of salvation.
Hounds (2024)
A short prologue sets the scene. In a violent underworld of dog fighting dens, one loyal mutt is mauled in battle. His owner, local mob boss Dib (Abdellah Lebkiri), rushes to an emergency vet. ‘His soul has risen,’ he’s told, as bravado melts away to be replaced by something much more raw and dangerous. The next day, he taps lowly hoodlum Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) to kidnap the rival dog’s handler, hoping to teach him a lesson. In need of an extra pair of hands, Hassan takes his son, Issam (Ayoub Elaïd), along for the ride in a worn-out minivan supplied for the gig, which sports a red paint job that is immediately identified as a bad omen.
Shot on the streets of Casablanca with a cast of predominantly non-professional actors, Hounds recalls the sort of street-level tragicomedy of errors that you’d find in the films of the Safdie Brothers. Hassan and Issam’s luck runs out before they’ve even started, and the botched kidnap leaves them with a new job: disposing of a corpse before morning. Unfortunately for them, the misfortune doesn’t stop there, as bad decisions and unhappy accidents pile up as the hours pass.
Hounds (2024)
As Hassan, Abdellatif Masstouri is a revelation. Prior to being recommended for the role by his co-star, Masstouri had been selling grilled sardines in a street food stall, but he had reportedly lived quite a life, from travelling throughout Europe, to being a Taekwondo champion, to serving time behind bars. All that hard-won experience shows in his face and demeanour: deep-set eyes framed by wild, thick curls of hair. His nervous energy is more of an ever-present simmer than the livewire intensity of, say, Robert Pattinson’s fidgety ne'er-do-well Connie in Good Time, but they’re cut from the same cloth. Dressed in a low-necked vest that exposes his chest to the elements, Hassan is at once dishevelled, vulnerable and weather-beaten: a veteran crook, with age but little wisdom.
Hounds (2024)
Cinematographer Amine Berrada (Banel & Adama) shoots faces like landscapes, and turns Casablanca into a netherworld full of lost souls: ancient boatmen and menacing giants found in abandoned gas stations. Here, unseemly business is conducted in shadows, momentarily illuminated by sickly yellow street lamps and blood-red brake lights. An up-close, handheld camera treads a fine tonal line between chaos and contemplation, with just enough space left for the absurd, the surreal and the spiritual.
As the night draws on, the very terrain seems to be working against Hassan and Issam: wells have run dry, the soil too hard to break. When a donkey blocks their path, Hassan remarks that it could well be a djinn spirit; later, he becomes convinced that they’re being punished for not handling their precious cargo with due respect and giving it a religious burial. The sparsely-applied score from French musician Pauline Rambeau de Baralon (P.R2B) coaxes tentative saxophones and clarinets out of the ether, their breathy, reedy qualities underscoring the film’s ruminative atmosphere. The saxophone, gleaming bright and capable of blowing white-hot in the right hands, is here reduced to a very human whisper, a prayer.
Hounds (2024)
From Bicycle Thieves to Mean Streets, we’re familiar with sharply-told tales of family bonds and the rigged games of crime and poverty, but there are unique cultural forces at play in Hounds. Despite all his concerns and crowing, it’s Issam’s deep-rooted loyalty to his deadbeat dad that pulls him into his doomed errand. It’s significant, then, when the son finally attempts to take charge of the situation – seizing the steering wheel from his father both literally and symbolically.
And yet, it’s not enough. It’s never enough, in a world where you live by your wits, right until you’re at your wits’ end, uncertain which higher power to surrender to: the divine authorities of religion and superstition, or the kingpins and conductors of the criminal underworld. Before he’s dragged along on his father’s mission, Issan whiles away his time at a local cafe, where the exclusively male clientele shoot pool, make deals and chat the day away. One punter is berated for wearing a ‘Mr Bean suit’ and wasting his time interviewing for a call centre job. 'They just don’t like the look of you,' he’s told, and besides, he could make a good deal more money picking up jobs on the street instead, and becoming just like the other men in Lazraq’s powerful human drama: dogs in cages, with nothing to do but fight.
Hounds is in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema from Friday
