This film’s tagline tells only half the story: “A young pregnant woman finds emancipation as aliens land in Morocco.” Or possibly it suggests the wrong sort of story, like we’re in for a Roland Emmerich doomsday extravaganza or some high-concept M Night Shyamalan-style shenanigans. Instead, Moroccan film-maker Sofia Alaoui’s debut begins as insightful, sharply observed commentary on class and gender in her home country. The young pregnant woman of the tagline is Itto (Oumaïma Barid), who lives with her husband and his parents in palatial marble-and-gold luxury.
But Itto was not born into wealth: she is from a poor rural family, a fact that her stuck-up mother-in-law (Souad Khouyi) won’t let her forget. Itto is at home alone when a meteorological event hits, a flood that brings out the army in trucks. A neighbour is paid to drive her to the city where her husband and his family are stranded, but the neighbour abandons her in a village. Extremely pregnant and alone, Itto is vulnerabile which makes her fierce, conveyed by the intensity of Barid’s captivating performance. We’ve seen Itto being passive or sulky at home, but suddenly her face has the determination of an Olympic sprinter running towards the finish line.
And here a creeping mood of eerie strangeness takes over the film. Green lightning flashes in the sky; animals behave strangely, dogs biting and skittish birds dive-bombing people. The men in the village are hostile to Itto; is it because she is a woman travelling alone or because they are possessed? Other people speak cryptically with the zeal of prophets. By the end, Animalia is more Terrence Malick than apocalyptic, with mystical transcendental suggestions of the interconnectedness of the universe. How satisfying that feels is a matter of personal taste, but this is undoubtedly an intriguing, eccentric and distinctive debut.
● Animalia is in UK and Irish cinemas from 12 December.
