Morocco was an unfailingly friendly destinationfor tourists until one night in May 2003. The terrorists who struck inCasablanca targeted Jewish sites and places frequented by foreigners, killingthemselves and 33 others. In Horses of God, director Nabil Ayouch imaginativelyrecreates the lives of one cell of bombers, tracing them from childhood,kicking soccer balls across a dirt field, through the moment before their “martyrdom”as they prepare to die—and murder.
The dramatization evokes a district tourists don’tcare to see, the vast shantytowns ringing Casasblanca with muddy alleys andrusty corrugated shacks. The central characters are brothers, Hamid and hisyounger sibling Yachine. Dead end kids trying to survive, they fight for scrapsin an environment of hopeless poverty, narcotics and corruption.
Sentenced to two years in prison, Hamid glows with a dull radiance when he returns. He wasinfected by an Islamic fundamentalism that supplies meaning and purpose in aworld that seems to have little. The extremist sect also provides a tight sense of community, agang with an apocalyptic sense of mission that seizes the imagination of youngmen with few prospects other than a vision of paradise awaiting those who diefor their faith.
In Arabic with English subtitles, Horses of Godis out on DVD and Blu-ray and will be screened at this year’s Milwaukee FilmFestival.
