Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Hounds

The film at the Keswick Film Club last Sunday was 'Hounds'. This is the first feature length film by the Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq and it won Cannes Special Jury prize. A remarkable achievement but I think many of the audience might not agree.

The story took place in Casablanca over one night. A father and son, a rather hapless couple, were given the job of kidnapping one of a rival gang. This would seem to be a fairly straightforward job, but inevitably things started going wrong. Not least of their problems was finding that their victim had suffocated in the boot of the car, so now the job became the disposal of the body. They realised this was above their pay grade, and the film followed them seeking the help of various friends from the Casablanca underworld, including a fisherman who manged to throw himself overboard rather than the weighted body.

The film dealt with these misadventures very well, with excellent photography and brilliant acting from a cast of non-professionals. The story was well paced but ultimately didn't really go anywhere. The body was disposed of by others, the father and son learned nothing, and their lives did not seem changed by these experiences, so the ending seemed rather flat.

The actors who played the father and son were found on the streets and used largely improvised dialogue. This gave the director some challenges, not least when re-shooting yet another take, the dialogue would change and so the story would shift slightly. The director saw a photo of Ayoub Elaïd, who plays Issam, the son, and immediately recognised that he would be right, but Ayoub was not keen, proclaiming that he couldn't do it as he was not a proper actor. Abdellatif Masstour who plays the father, was found working on a street food stall, and the director wanted him for his remarkable face but later found that his past life, including time in jail, added to his appeal.

An enjoyable and well made film – but First Prize at Cannes – not really!