Dachra
A student journalist on the final assignment of her course, Yassmine has been tasked with making a filmed investigative report she must research herself, accompanied by classmates Bilel and Walid on camera and sound, Walid suggesting the subject based on a conversation from a friend of his mother, a psychiatric nurse who looks after a violent patient, a woman found on the side of the road twenty years previously, badly injured and naked.
The staff calling her Mongia and believing that she is a witch, the director of the facility refuses access but Walid bribes their way in, their time with Mongia brief and ending in an outburst but giving them a pointer to the place where she was found, beyond the city on the cusp of the forest where the trio find a strange girl who leads them to a village which in other times would have been abandoned yet still harbours a reclusive community.
Its name meaning “the place of refuge” in Arabic, Dachra is written and directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak in his feature debut, subtitled Curse of the Witch for its English release, with Yassmine Dimassi as Yassmine, absolutely determined to push forward to complete her assignment, in her interview with the director of the hospital, heckling him through his denials, then striding through the forest as the others fall behind her, no time for doubt or weakness.
Plagued by nightmares of “the woman in black” since she was a child, her grandfather who has taken care of her wishing her to seek spiritual guidance, that spectre is superceded when they find themselves in the near-derelict village, she wishing to leave as soon as is practical but Walid (Aziz Jbali) wishing to stay and enjoy the hospitality offered, principally centred around meat dishes, while Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) avoids expressing a clear opinion one way or the other.
The setup of three documentary filmmakers, one woman and two men, stumbling through misty and unfamiliar forests in search of an urban legend of witches calling to mind a similar scenario two decades previously in Burkittsville, there is the requisite bickering and recrimination, Walid in particular choosing the easiest option rather than looking at any larger responsibility and failing to alert the others when he finds a concerning oddity while reviewing the footage on Bilal’s camera.
A film concerned with the rituals of death and the preparation of meat, of the position of women in a patriarchal society, Yassmine accepted as leader in her group but talked over and dismissed when in the village where the other women sit silent and fearful behind their veils, Dachra is full of atmosphere and dread but frustrates itself with plot holes which could easily have been fixed rather than relying on the wilful complicity of Yassmine and her cohort to hand themselves over to a danger which becomes more apparent with every moment.
Dachra is streaming on the Arrow platform now
