Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sofia Alaoui
Starring: Oumaïma Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou
I've often wondered if John Williams drew inspiration from Jazz harpist Alice Coltrane's 1972 album 'World Galaxy' when composing his score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Williams' main theme from Spielberg's movie certainly sounds a lot like Coltrane's 'Galaxy in Turiya'. Like all of Coltrane's work, 'World Galaxy' is intended as a meditative work, one designed to make you consider your place in the cosmos as you listen to its soothing strings. Considering your place in the cosmos can either make you feel scared and irrelevant or provide you with comfort in the idea that you're part of something bigger than yourself.
Like Close Encounters, writer/director Sofia Alaoui's Moroccan-set feature debut Animalia is centred on a protagonist who finds themselves reborn via extra-terrestrial contact. It doesn't have the budget or expanse of Spielberg's blockbuster but it contains similar images and shares a central theme of one person finding emancipation in an event that terrifies most others. This is Spiritual Jazz as cinema; Coltrane's work could easily fit as its score.
The protagonist here is Itto (Oumaïma Barid). Coming from a poor Berber background, Itto married into a rich family and is now pregnant with her husband Amine's (Mehdi Dehbi) child. When Amine's family head off on a business trip, Itto is left alone in their sprawling mansion. Like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, Itto is relieved by this freedom, dancing around to the Isley Brothers in a manner which is likely forbidden by her husband's religious family.
A couple of days later Itto receives a phone call from a distressed Amine. Due to a strange event that the government is concealing, roads have been blocked and he won't be able to make it home. Amine organises for a neighbour to drive Itto closer to him, but Itto is swindled and left stranded in a remote village. There she notices animals behaving strangely, and the menfolk staring at her in a sinister manner. She pays a local man, Fouad (Fouad Oughaou), to drive her to her husband, and the pair set off on a journey through an ambiguous and uncertain landscape.
There are some impressive effects for a relatively low budget Moroccan production, with shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey in Itto's encounters with extra-terrestrials that seem to communicate with her through psychedelic light shows. Alaoui is a little too reliant on voiceover and dialogue to provide context, though some of the philosophical dialogue is beautifully composed, especially a metaphor about fish being unaware of the water around them. The suggestion is that the "invading" aliens here have been with us all along. But unlike the buried tripods of War of the Worlds, they've been part of our atmosphere, unseen in the air we breathe because we never paused to look for them. Animalia is a plea to open our eyes and take in the beauty that surrounds us.
Some have theorised that Close Encounters was an allegory for the secular Spielberg connecting to his Jewish roots and rediscovering a long-abandoned faith. Animalia flips this idea on its head. At the beginning of the film Itto is a relatively devout Muslim, though she's enough of a feminist to refuse to wear any head coverings. The journey she embarks on is one of spiritual discovery but also one in which she learns to question her religion. Fouad is an atheist who argues that the existence of extreme wealth gaps like that of Morocco is proof enough of the lack of a divine entity. Itto initially bites back at such statements, but her own close encounters with phenomena that can't be explained in her religion's texts causes her to rethink all she's taken for granted. In a scene that no doubt ruffled feathers in the director's home country, Alaoui stages her hero's ultimate enlightenment amid a mass prayer gathering in which the women are expected to pray outside while the men enjoy the shelter of the mosque. As Itto defies tradition and enters the mosque, her water breaks. The suggestion, and hope, is that the next generation of Moroccans may be guided by something bigger than religion.
Animalia is in UK cinemas from December 12th.
