Dachra

Excellent movie. Very tribal references very different from what we used to see In that sort of movies.

Ok, so it is different cinematography, but how different seriously now? I do get it, we have to encourage foreigners to do their best and show us their vision, which usually differs from the common Hollywood productions, or in my case African vs European. But all in all, for me, it was a familiar production, one very easily to anticipate, the only struggle I had with this movie was trying to understand the characters: all they do is fight yet we suppose to somehow feel they are a team.

After you watch this you will realize that not only it was very difficult to root for them, but they did the very absolute in taking the wrong decisions throughout the entire movie. So if I can not relate to them or even sparkle some empathy, why even go with these characters? After this first set back, we have the plot itself: well clearly not original in any way, I do understand the themes explored here, but the development is weak, far stretched and annoyingly boring.

For the first Tunisian horror ever, I will grade it a 4 thanks to the effort and courage into making it, but that is it. It showed nothing new, different, it was a movie I've seen it 1000 times only longer and more frustrating. A lot of the scenes could have been cut off and if the movie would have proved to be a huge success, perhaps added in the director's cut. But they have no place here, and as the run time is close to 2h, perhaps less quantity and more quality. Also...the plot itself is weird and non sense at time, as a lot of the things presented on screen either make no other appearance or no difference later on.

Anyway sadly I can not recommend it whatsoever as it is a difficult watch, even for those that want to put an eye on a different type of cinema, simply expect nothing than a movie which will seem to last for at least 3 hours.

Cheers!

Given the review score, I went into this movie rather intrigued, but there are essentially no original ideas here. Every plot point and revelation is one you've seen before, and nearly every character is dumb to a point that not even the suspension of disbelief can justify it. The film's cinematography is noteworthy but brought down by the color grading and lack of budget for real sets. I did like the grandfather character, as each of his scenes were unique and striking compared to the rest of the by-the-numbers story beats and visuals.

And just to take up the last few characters to meet the review criteria, what kind of genius character would put their face near a pot of offal and hooves and expect any other smell beyond utter wretchedness?

Also, the number of perfect scores for this movie strikes me as very suspicious.

The concept was good but nothing new, most turkish horror movies rely on the same pattern. A slow pace direction with less stupid characters, might make it worth a watch.

Dachra is unique in that it is the first Tunisian horror movie I've seen and particularly in the first couple of acts, that in itself is almost enough recommendation to see the film. It is rather intriguing watching this slow-building, creepy piece, whilst at the same time hearing lines of idiosyncratic dialogue such as "May the blessings of Allah be upon you." Director/writer/and just about everything else except popcorn vendor Abdelhamid Bouchnak, should be congratulated over this, his debut feature. The next best thing I can say about Dachra is that Bouchnak excels at building an atmosphere of eeriness concerning the story of a trio of journalism students, attempting to build a video news story assignment around a gruesome criminal case over 20 years old. Unfortunately in presenting his finished product, one finds that he hasn't been able to restrain himself from overindulging his borrowing of too many tried and tested horror tropes.

Visually, the film initially proves interesting, with Director of Photography: Hatem Nechi demonstrating he is more than prepared to adopt a variety of unusual angles to lens proceedings, using a very much desaturated black-and-white look to underline the stark, bleak nature of the story. But one does eventually tire of massive numbers of shots approached with Dutch angles, with quite a few seemingly deliberately out of focus. Towards the end of the film we even get the good old, nausea-inducing, spinning head in the kaleidoscopic panel, just for good measure. It's almost as if director Bouchnak was apologetic over not presenting a found-footage film and decided to dazzle us with visual tricks as the next best thing.

Character wise it's very much run of the mill. A trio of loud, almost obnoxious and therefore largely unsympathetic personalities who consistently make (really) dumb decisions and thus, unsurprisingly end up in a life and death situation in a rural village with the title name. I should add there is a very late, very contrived twist to somewhat explain their constantly, chaotic, unrealistic behaviour, but I just didn't buy it and it really didn't make a lot of sense. The central protagonist Yasmine transitions from attempting to be portrayed as a plucky, feisty heroine, to an annoyingly, blubbering, screeching damsel in distress, all in the space of a few seconds. And I still haven't worked out how her grandad, who has a tenuous connection to the main thread, knew she was in Dachra. I don't recall her, or anyone telling him.

Narratively, Dachra feels about 15 minutes too long. Stuff occurring in the village just seems to be repeated (literally) ad nauseam. One feels the conclusion is just dragged out too far and this, combined with the illogical actions of our three main characters, brings a frustrating end to proceedings, rather than a frighteningly good climax.

Still, even though I found Dachra ultimately unsatisfying, I would like to see some follow-up work from Abdelhamid Bouchnak. The guy definitely shows some promise. 5.5/10.