Beauty and the Dogs is a 2018 crime drama about a young Tunisian woman who meets a mysterious man at a student party, and leaves with him, beginning a night where she must fight for her rights.
On a technical level, Khaled Walid Barsaoui and Kaouther Ben Hania‘s latest is something of a marvel, though these accomplishments will mostly go unnoticed under the more emotional impact of how it is used to tell its troubling story. Shedding light on a corrupt system of bureaucracy, mistreatment, and discrimination, it’s a sometimes harrowing symbolic journey of a woman who clearly comes to represent many in a deeply engrossing film that is as distressing as it is moving.
Miriam (Mariam Al Ferjani) is a young Tunisian woman waiting in a bathroom stall for her friend who has brought her a new dress to replace the one she has torn. She changes her clothes and the two enter a small hotel club for some dancing where Miriam meets a man named Youssef (Ghanem Zrelli). The two exchange unheard bits of flirtation under the beats thundering around them, soon heading for the exit and into the night. We cut immediately to some time later where Miriam is on the run, Youssef behind her, the implication clear, but it is not as we suspect. She has been raped but not by him, and in the traumatizing aftermath, he hurries her to get her help, though this is where the real nightmare begins.
Set in Tunisia, the film explores the damaging psychological effects of sexual assault by avoiding the act of it (entirely unseen) and putting focus on the hurdles a victim faces in this particular corner of the world. While there are inferences and statements that make it clear this is a Muslim state, the story is more interested in the role of women in a system that puts the blame for such things on them. Miriam and Youssef face a hospital indifferent to her cause, her loss of ID (taken by her rapists) making her ineligible to be admitted. A nearby E.R. is overrun and in chaos, her plight hardly a concern for those already under intense scrutiny. At a police station, she delivers her statement to two detectives who only pretend to record her story, Youssef discovering that the computer isn’t even plugged in. However, Youssef is a man with a history himself, and his turn in all this is always in question.
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I won’t reveal who raped Miriam, but suffice to say it is a shock, simply because it comes from a place we don’t expect. The story unfolds in nine labeled chapters, each filmed in single-take ten or so minute steadicam shots orbiting around Miriam that are remarkable in their execution and effectiveness. That it’s initially unnoticed is testament to the filmmaker’s dedication to their story rather than its delivery. More so, it’s because of Al Ferjani, whose performance is subtle and quietly metamorphic. Miriam is nearly the only woman on screen for the duration, evolving as she moves through the stages of fear, despair, confusion, and finally anger. Miriam a tragic victim struggling with a reality that seems impossible to comprehend. This isn’t Hollywood melodrama, Barsaoui and Ben Hania (who wrote the screenplay) avoiding the typical landmarks the genre seems to demand, instead keeping this a quiet horror where a young woman is left to a cycle of men who endlessly steer her into dark shadows. What Miriam does to keep her sanity is no less than miraculous.
Beauty and the Dogs is a heavy film, dialogue driven and stylistically committed to its storytelling device, often feeling like a stage play with conflicts up close and in small, confining spaces. This all comes to a riveting final sequence where Miriam faces her greatest challenge in the light of another betrayal, ending with a truly inspiring image of a woman and a lengthy silken scarf that will have you rethinking what a superhero is.