★★★☆☆
Fatima-Zahra (Aicha Tebbae) and her son Selim (Abdellah El Hajjouji) move from place to place and scandal to scandal in Fyzal Boulifa’s mournful Moroccan drama. Here’s our The Damned Don’t Cry review.
Fatima-Zahra and her teenage son Selim don’t have the best relationship. She drags the pair from city to city, sleeping on floors as she chases the life of her dreams, unwilling to confront the consequences her wanderlust has on Selim. He, meanwhile, has grown up sullen and misogynistic and regularly threatens her with violence.
In fairness, neither has had the sort of life which tends to build a well-rounded individual. Fatima-Zahra grew up in a large, traditional Moroccan family, which she left years ago to pursue the sort of free-spirited life they openly disapprove of.
Selim is more similar to his mother than either would like to admit. Stubborn and fiercely protective of his independence, he insists his mother stay at home while he naively goes on the hunt for work. After finding himself forced into selling sex to a wealthy Frenchman – scenes which are appropriately difficult to watch – he brings his disapproving mother expensive presents, which she refuses out of hand.
Selim ultimately sells sex to wealthy Frenchman Sébastien (Antoine Reinartz) (credit: Curzon)
It’s this volatile pairing that forms the heart of The Damned Don’t Cry, and so it’s a testament to the two leads – Aicha Tebbae and Abdellah El Hajjouji – that the story comes across as believably as it does. The story of two very damaged people increasingly unable to connect with each other over the course of the runtime is undeniably moving, even if the unrelentingly bleak tone leaves little room to get under the characters’ skin properly.
The film’s smartly made, too, with Nadah El Shazly’s haunting score and Caroline Champetier’s cinematography grounding the story well.
READ MORE: Smoking Causes Coughing review | Quentin Dupieux does it again!
Boulifa’s script covers a lot of ground, from Morocco’s colonial history to religious conservatism, all explored through the lives of its two protagonists. That the film takes so many facets of modern poverty and presents them so organically is an impressive screenwriting feat. It’s nuanced, affecting stuff, though the tone can feel a little monotonous at times. With scarcely a single ray of sunshine to break through the clouds, the result is a film which feels worthy of admiration but holds back from delivering an emotional gut-punch.
The Damned Don’t Cry is in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema from 7 July
