![]() The devil is alien in this case, or some other ineffable supernatural whatist - Alaoui doesn’t elaborate on its place of origin, a decision that works in the film’s favor. Itto (Oumaïma Barid) lounges in a bathtub before the action kicks off. Animalia humbly makes a counterargument: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Itto prays throughout Animalia, but between her prayers going unanswered and her interactions with people going sour, the promise of an otherworldly figure she can safely invest her trust in sounds tempting. So Itto hitches a ride with a neighbor, who takes her money and swiftly abandons her in a burg that most certainly is not Khouribga, giving Animalia a piece of evidence to support its thesis about human behavior in crises. It’s too dangerous for them to leave Khouribga, or for Itto to join them, but it’s also dangerous for her to remain alone when the military has set up shop by a nearby lake. A treacherous storm starts a-brewin’ as Itto’s “me time” winds down, stranding Amine, Hajar, and the rest of the gang at the governor’s estate in Khouribga, the capital city in Morocco’s Khouribga Province. Man is a fool, of course, because otherwise Alaoui wouldn’t have much of a movie on her hands. When you make your home the grandest landmark - natural or manmade - for miles around and beyond, you’re doing it to make a statement: I am man, and I reign over all I survey. The world is vast, and humans are infernally convinced that they can master its boundlessness either through religious practice, or self-insulation. If bliss could be defined in a single image, it’d be Alaoui’s long shot of Barid lounging at the peak of comfort, despite Itto’s obvious prenatal pains.Īnimalia unfolds largely outside of this setting, but the filmmaker’s choice to highlight the opulence Itto has married into is meaningful. She casually burps, too, a joyful eruption that matches Ronald, Kelly, and Rudolph’s vocals and Ernie’s bass. She cracks a smile as her in-laws drive off with a slight rise of her lips, The Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing” bursts over the soundtrack, and Itto glides through Amine’s mansion, plopping herself down on a couch so unbearably luxe that it’s easy to imagine her mother in-law, Hajar (Souad Khouyi), declaring “snacking” and “putting one’s feet on the cushions” as criminal offenses. ![]() ![]() Itto (Oumaïma Barid) is gloriously pregnant and left to her own devices by her husband Amine (Mehdi Dehbi) and his obliviously rich family. On the way to his house I started to feel very scared, and at that moment the entire human race felt as I did.After 10 minutes of terse politeness and stifling silence in Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia, the tension breaks with a needle-drop. We went outside and I looked up at the sky, it was grey and dreary, and we could see the bright stars and their beams of green light. I thought that was a good idea and maybe we could get some other things we need, so I went with him. ![]() The only person who wanted to go out was our close relative, he wanted to run back home to grab some food and return. We were all scared of what was happening, we wondered what was happening with everyone else but no one wanted to leave. My entire family gathered in the livingroom. What was he saying? How did his face look like? I couldn't say anymore. It was whispering, planning devious things, then disappeared. I heard a crash downstairs so I grabbed my camera and rushed downstairs as fast as I could, I saw a mess leading into the backporch and there I saw a figure in the dark. I remember looking up at the black sky and expected green shafts of light to suddenly appear over us, but nothing happened. They were far away from us, but maybe eventually the beams of light would've reached the town, and who knows what would've happened. They began emitting green beams of light that reached all the way to earth, and seemingly, nothing happened. We didn't yet know if they were our friends or our enemies, nor did we even know how they looked, in fact we didn't know anything about them. I once had a terrible nightmare of an alien invasion! They looked like stars in the dimming sky, slowly descending towards earth. A Town, the Space Above the Town, and a Living Room
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