(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A woman earns a living by smuggling exotic animals and illegal goods, developing a mobile app that links users with mystical marabout healers, but one of the user's consultations takes a tragic turn facing a violent backlash.”
I’m a firm believer that we, as a species, do call anything we don’t understand ‘magic,’ and – yes – this statement most definitely concerns ‘black magic,’ a topic that gets a contemporary makeover in 2023’s Hood Witch. The dirty little secret, however, is that there really isn’t all that much magic on display in the film: while the thriller from writer/director Saïd Belktibia strongly suggests a bit of hocus-pocus could be taking place, he also pairs a good deal of these events with some religious and/or spiritual connections, so much so that it’s pretty clear that he’s left defining what power their might be in the wide, wide universe up to the eyes of the beholder. That’s a reasonable position, but it might have the storyteller losing support from fans who really wanted proof that the supernatural is more commonplace than folks want to believe.
Viewers are introduced to Nour (played by a stunning Golshifteh Farahani) and her equally superstitious protégé/son Amine (Amine Zariouhi) under curious circumstances: the lady is caught red-handed trying to smuggle a veritable zoo’s worth of exotic animals into the country underneath her burqa. What the government authorities fail to recover are two smaller and even deadlier frogs she’s sealed in plastic and swallowed for safekeeping. Once back home, she pulls them from her esophagus via thread tied to her teeth; and – rest assured – these little buggers do play a significant role late in the picture.
As a practitioner of some dark arts, Nour has built herself a neighborhood clientele who’ve reaped the benefits of her various spells and incantations, making her the ‘hood witch’ around which the entire tale is structured. Because such magic has proven successful, our lovely magician has come up with an idea to bring witchcraft into the modern age, offering her services to the world-at-large via a smartphone APP. While profits begin to build up in her bank account – money she so desperately needs since she’s estranged from deadbeat husband Dylan (Jérémy Ferrari) – so, too, does her reputation grow in the local community. Suffice it to say, not all of her neighbors are as supportive as they could be, and this draws some condemnation from the local heavy Ahmed (Issaka Sawadogo) and the Islamic leader Lyes Boussoufi (Karim Belkhadra).
When one of the young men under her care dies under curious circumstances (suicide is strongly suggested but it’s never confirmed), Nour finds herself in the center of the brewing controversy. She’s christened a witch by those around her, and suddenly she’s running for her life with Amine in tow from a mob who would seen her burned alive (as we did to witches of old) for engaging in the Devil’s business. Eventually, Dylan gets his hands on their son; and – in what he hopes will be an attempt to save the son’s immortal soul – he has the local cleric begin the process to exorcise the youth before it’s too late.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A woman earns a living by smuggling exotic animals and illegal goods, developing a mobile app that links users with mystical marabout healers, but one of the user's consultations takes a tragic turn facing a violent backlash.”
I’m a firm believer that we, as a species, do call anything we don’t understand ‘magic,’ and – yes – this statement most definitely concerns ‘black magic,’ a topic that gets a contemporary makeover in 2023’s Hood Witch. The dirty little secret, however, is that there really isn’t all that much magic on display in the film: while the thriller from writer/director Saïd Belktibia strongly suggests a bit of hocus-pocus could be taking place, he also pairs a good deal of these events with some religious and/or spiritual connections, so much so that it’s pretty clear that he’s left defining what power their might be in the wide, wide universe up to the eyes of the beholder. That’s a reasonable position, but it might have the storyteller losing support from fans who really wanted proof that the supernatural is more commonplace than folks want to believe.
Viewers are introduced to Nour (played by a stunning Golshifteh Farahani) and her equally superstitious protégé/son Amine (Amine Zariouhi) under curious circumstances: the lady is caught red-handed trying to smuggle a veritable zoo’s worth of exotic animals into the country underneath her burqa. What the government authorities fail to recover are two smaller and even deadlier frogs she’s sealed in plastic and swallowed for safekeeping. Once back home, she pulls them from her esophagus via thread tied to her teeth; and – rest assured – these little buggers do play a significant role late in the picture.
As a practitioner of some dark arts, Nour has built herself a neighborhood clientele who’ve reaped the benefits of her various spells and incantations, making her the ‘hood witch’ around which the entire tale is structured. Because such magic has proven successful, our lovely magician has come up with an idea to bring witchcraft into the modern age, offering her services to the world-at-large via a smartphone APP. While profits begin to build up in her bank account – money she so desperately needs since she’s estranged from deadbeat husband Dylan (Jérémy Ferrari) – so, too, does her reputation grow in the local community. Suffice it to say, not all of her neighbors are as supportive as they could be, and this draws some condemnation from the local heavy Ahmed (Issaka Sawadogo) and the Islamic leader Lyes Boussoufi (Karim Belkhadra).
When one of the young men under her care dies under curious circumstances (suicide is strongly suggested but it’s never confirmed), Nour finds herself in the center of the brewing controversy. She’s christened a witch by those around her, and suddenly she’s running for her life with Amine in tow from a mob who would seen her burned alive (as we did to witches of old) for engaging in the Devil’s business. Eventually, Dylan gets his hands on their son; and – in what he hopes will be an attempt to save the son’s immortal soul – he has the local cleric begin the process to exorcise the youth before it’s too late.
Essentially, Hood Witch turns away from its Folk Horror roots in the second half when Belktibia morphs the procedure into more of a dramatic Thriller. (That’s not a complaint but rather an honest observation about where it all goes.) Granted, Nour’s intimate knowledge does work itself rather loosely through some elements of the action; and yet there’s no denying that black magic really serves more as a loose thread than it does a prominent plot point as things develop. Conventions being what they are, Belktibia even takes a somewhat easy (or lazy) way out as he explores witchcraft and spirituality on parallel tracks, likening the practices of both as truly being the product of their respective believers. Because the faith represented here is Islam, I can’t help but wonder is the storyteller has a death wish as practitioners of that ‘religion of peace’ don’t take kindly to even casual criticism of worship; but who am I to say?
As for performances, Hood Witch actually receives strong marks. Zariouhi represents an effective youth position: while he demonstrates some affinity for what his mother is accomplishing with her chants and the like, he never appears to have fully embraced what practicing might be. He dabbles – indeed, he’s tied directly to the aforementioned possible suicide – but he’s equally aghast when things don’t turn out the way they could have. Ferrari – as the somewhat jilted husband – is a bit of a quandary: he’s painted as little more than a thug with violent tendencies is early scenes but does seem to authentically care about Amine’s spiritual self. It would’ve been nice to have been provided a bit more as his last sequence suggests he was willing to watch his son die at the hands of a mad cleric when the dispossession comes across as religious violence.
But … wow … Farahani truly delivers a centered performance, one that gives her ample opportunity to show her skills in big and small ways. She’s tender in one scene and then – as mothers can be – a bit detached in the next; but once her child’s life is on the line she quickly becomes the Holy Terror – with her own special bag of tricks – no one wants to face in a crisis like this. I’m honestly a bit flummoxed that I haven’t seen more of her, but her IMDB.com profile suggests she’s caught the attention of critics and audiences alike in her bid for stardom.
Still, Hood Witch’s biggest weakness is that it never quite commits to any pervasive vision when it comes to the central witchery. Perhaps Belktibia felt that showing Nour as a practitioner was good enough, or perhaps he didn’t really want to clarify for the purposes of this story whether or not any of her work accomplished anything. That’s most likely the case given the fact that his story really offers up challenging the belief of any system – witchcraft, religion, etc. – that would potentially inflict harm in the pursuit of doing good deeds, spiritual or otherwise. But there’s a closing exchange between mother and son than has the flair of jokiness that honestly left a bad taste in my mouth; and I think these two big characters deserved more than a kinda/sorta jest after all they’d been through.
Hood Witch (2023) was produced by Iconoclast, Lyly Films, France 2 Cinéma, Canal+, Ciné+, France Télévisions, and Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). The film shows presently available for streaming via a variety of internet platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional from start-to-finish. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Since I viewed the film via streaming, there were no special features under consideration.
Recommended.
While interesting – perhaps for discussion’s sake – Hood Witch (2023) is ultimately a bit frustrating as its conclusion really fails to tie up all of the action and resulting chaos in any definitive way. Like those witches of old, the modern incarnation seems to be nothing more than an outcast with an odd fascination with deadly trivia; and Nour – as a character – perhaps deserved to be given a stronger epitaph than trying to trick her teenage son in the final reel. I suspect that was her way at thumbing her nose at the suggested religious convention – that of exorcising a possible demon – and kudos to her character for minimally staying true to her convictions.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at MPI Media Group provided me with complimentary streaming access to Hood Witch (2023) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
As for performances, Hood Witch actually receives strong marks. Zariouhi represents an effective youth position: while he demonstrates some affinity for what his mother is accomplishing with her chants and the like, he never appears to have fully embraced what practicing might be. He dabbles – indeed, he’s tied directly to the aforementioned possible suicide – but he’s equally aghast when things don’t turn out the way they could have. Ferrari – as the somewhat jilted husband – is a bit of a quandary: he’s painted as little more than a thug with violent tendencies is early scenes but does seem to authentically care about Amine’s spiritual self. It would’ve been nice to have been provided a bit more as his last sequence suggests he was willing to watch his son die at the hands of a mad cleric when the dispossession comes across as religious violence.
But … wow … Farahani truly delivers a centered performance, one that gives her ample opportunity to show her skills in big and small ways. She’s tender in one scene and then – as mothers can be – a bit detached in the next; but once her child’s life is on the line she quickly becomes the Holy Terror – with her own special bag of tricks – no one wants to face in a crisis like this. I’m honestly a bit flummoxed that I haven’t seen more of her, but her IMDB.com profile suggests she’s caught the attention of critics and audiences alike in her bid for stardom.
Still, Hood Witch’s biggest weakness is that it never quite commits to any pervasive vision when it comes to the central witchery. Perhaps Belktibia felt that showing Nour as a practitioner was good enough, or perhaps he didn’t really want to clarify for the purposes of this story whether or not any of her work accomplished anything. That’s most likely the case given the fact that his story really offers up challenging the belief of any system – witchcraft, religion, etc. – that would potentially inflict harm in the pursuit of doing good deeds, spiritual or otherwise. But there’s a closing exchange between mother and son than has the flair of jokiness that honestly left a bad taste in my mouth; and I think these two big characters deserved more than a kinda/sorta jest after all they’d been through.
Hood Witch (2023) was produced by Iconoclast, Lyly Films, France 2 Cinéma, Canal+, Ciné+, France Télévisions, and Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). The film shows presently available for streaming via a variety of internet platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional from start-to-finish. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Since I viewed the film via streaming, there were no special features under consideration.
Recommended.
While interesting – perhaps for discussion’s sake – Hood Witch (2023) is ultimately a bit frustrating as its conclusion really fails to tie up all of the action and resulting chaos in any definitive way. Like those witches of old, the modern incarnation seems to be nothing more than an outcast with an odd fascination with deadly trivia; and Nour – as a character – perhaps deserved to be given a stronger epitaph than trying to trick her teenage son in the final reel. I suspect that was her way at thumbing her nose at the suggested religious convention – that of exorcising a possible demon – and kudos to her character for minimally staying true to her convictions.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at MPI Media Group provided me with complimentary streaming access to Hood Witch (2023) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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