Beauty And The Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit) [Sub: Eng]

"Beauty and the Dogs" confronts issues rarely addressed so frankly - at least in this part of the world - with a story that is both powerful and important.

Alas, this tale of a young rape victim further brutalized by officialdom never lives up to its potential.

As Mariam careens between hospitals and police stations, facing bureaucratic indifference and misogyny, the movie's fever pitch begins to feel at odds with its artistry.

Beauty and the Dogs plays like an actual, unending nightmare.

A crescendo of humiliation, anxiety and abuse, "Beauty and the Dogs" plays like a horror movie where every choice is a Catch-22 and every door a trap.

The form doesn't serve the story, and while the overall choreography of actors and camerawork is impressive, it never fully satisfies.

The police are viewed as the Dogs of the title.

As an exercise in tainted bureaucracies... Ben Hania's film works best but otherwise loses its abilities to humanize any of its characters beyond their harrowing trauma or overbearing villainy.

Beauty and the Dogs is a beautiful, emotionally-taxing film that kept me up until 2 AM with dark thoughts about how terrifying it still is to be a woman in 2018

It's hard to tell how much director Kaouther Ben Hania, who also wrote the script, slowed down the action to pander to an international audience. This over-explaining almost swallows the film's considerable technical achievements, too.

Beauty and the Dogs is a sterling achievement from filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania that features an important, uncompromising vision of a real patriarchal and legally corrupt society.

This is a gruelling film and one that survivors of sexual violence should watch with caution, but it is a tremendously powerful piece of cinema.