Starve Your Dog

Casablanca. A poor woman begs for an earthquake to wreak divine justice on her impoverished country. A man torches his mobile phone. A woman out for a walk dances along and lifts up her skirt for money. Hours spent idling in an improvised television studio make the technical crew antagonistic – until Driss Basri appears, King Hassan II’s dreaded interior minister and the man responsible for countless human rights abuses under Hassan’s regime of terror. Basri died in exile in Paris in 2007. In his latest experimental cinematic essay Hicham Lasri rewrites the facts, placing Basri under 15 years of house arrest before he has him reveal dark secrets about Morocco’s recent history. His confessions incite the TV crew to take action and merge into brilliant visual associations, unfolding into a masterful psychedelic stream of historical consciousness featuring desolate beaches, ramshackle buildings, incensed and confused passers-by, archive footage, imaginings, industrial sounds and quotes from Shakespeare and Daft Punk that provides an impressive commentary on the country’s troubled present.