A slow burn. I dare say it because here it's not a metaphorical cliché, it's the actual plot of this indie!
Set in Greece in a near dystopic future, we follow Ashraf Idriss (Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri), an immigrant hired to house-sit a villa for the summer, ensuring its safety amidst rising hooliganism and brutality whilst personally suffering the oppression that attempts to counter the tense lawlessness of a heat-wave-baked world increasingly deprived of its primary resource: water.
Sure enough, the standoffish Ashraf faces increasing threats, scared to be in the villa and afraid to act after having lost his papers to a racist cop, but what's a real menace and what results out of a slowly baking brain?
Told through careful cinematography, editing, and sensibility that lean towards art-house minimalism, this first-time feature for Joyce A. Nashawati marks this Lebanese director as someone possessing tremendous flair for the deeply nuanced yet sharp socio-political allegory, the kind that lets one get away with more style then story.
The horror classification given by some (see Shudder.com) is believable. The menace that looms throughout genuinely takes hold midway and brings us to chilling moments, both of real fear and psychological unease. There's an unsettling atmosphere that reigns, set both by an intriguing soundtrack and a keen exploitation of light in establishing either the threat of a sun-drenched world or of those lurking in shadows.
A tense, unnerving visual treat with a disturbing end, my only complaint is that it's often too easy to forget just how water-deprived and hot a world Ashraf faces and it's never quite justified why he seems to suffer more than all. Watching his "burnout" is engrossing, but we never fully embark on his ride that leads to his solution, albeit we certainly do feel his relief afterwards (up to a point) for, though he's hardly the most likable and pet- friendly of fellows, he does earn our sympathy.
Well worth a watch!
