Saïd Belktibia’s suburban Paris set contemporary “witchcraft” thriller Hood Witch starring Golshifteh Farahani as the desperately broke single mother Nour who takes to smuggling restricted animals from Marrakesh for Marabout healers and other “shamans” is less about witchcraft as it is about what a modern-day witch-hunt would look like. Nour isn’t a witch; she’s taking advantage of an off-the-books market where religion, race, and class intersect. Left few financial choices by her violent ex-husband Dylan (Jérémy Ferrari) who withholds child support payments for their young adolescent son Amine (Amine Zariouhi) Nour is scraping by however she can in her low-income housing flat. Her goal is to ensure there’s food on the table and a roof over their heads that’s not controlled by Dylan who believes he’s owed obedience and compliance by Nour.
Belktibia begins the film with a montage about witchcraft in France which acts as his thesis. Historically, women have borne the brunt of witchcraft accusations and hysteria around the “practice” usually thrives in small and disadvantaged communities. There are frauds and charlatans, religious healers, alternative medicine practitioners, and internet ‘witches’ – it is big business and essentially unregulated. Nour supplies Rabea (Farida Mouffok) with esoteric supplies for her faith healing and does deals on the internet with people who are interested in “barakah” (divine healing from Allah). Nour and Amine’s apartment looks like an exotic zoo – filled with large spiders, lizards, poisonous frogs, and snakes. Amine often gets beguiled with the theatre of their lifestyle and Nour must reiterate to him that there is no magic, only belief in it.
An unstable neighbour, Jules (Denis Levant) begs Nour to help him with his mentally ill son, Kevin (Mathieu Espagnet). Nour reiterates that Kevin would be best served with professional medical care, but Jules insists doctors and prescriptions are too expensive and the young man is possessed. Eventually, Jules gets his way, and a shocking exorcism is performed wherein the extent of Kevin’s delusions are revealed. All Nour wants is for Kevin to be safe and cared for, especially as Amine is his friend. As the “healings” begin to spiral out of control, so too does her relationship with Dylan who physically attacks her and threatens to take Amine away from her permanently.
Eventually Kevin dies via a tragic accident (Jules had been keeping him locked in chains in their bizarre glass bottle filled apartment) and Jules decries Nour as a witch. The declaration allows for Dylan’s friend Brother Ahmed (Issaka Sawadogo) himself a practitioner of Marabout, to target Nour as an unclean shayāṭīn worshipper who must be destroyed so Amine and Dylan can be purified from her evil.
Nour’s biggest crime in reality is refusing to bend to the rules set up by Ahmed and his fellow Rokya adherents. She has also dared to be successful on her own terms and not toed the line drawn by misogynist men. The sheer hatred thrown at her via personal attacks, social media outrage, and unsubstantiated news reports makes her a target and a pariah with nowhere to turn. Her apartment is burned down, Amine is taken by Dylan who claims that Nour kidnapped him, and she is beaten in public by men who claim that she’s a dirty “whore bitch.” With Amine stolen from her, Nour turns her mind to revenge.
Saïd Belktibia creates blistering openings and closings of the film, but there is a repetitive middle section which pushes at the patience of the viewer. Belktibia and co-writer Louis Penicaut make their thesis clear early on – women are scapegoats for weak and spiteful men whose hypocrisy is sanctioned by multiple power structures. The switch from measured menace to frenetic action is jarring and once the film moves into that register the pacing becomes messy. Escape, evasion, confrontation, escape, evasion, confrontation ad nauseum doesn’t allow for some of the visceral gut punch sections to breathe before the scene switches. Conceptually Hood Witch is sound, the execution is uneven.
Despite the film’s erratic pacing Hood Witch gives Golshifteh Farahani yet another canvas for her action chops and acting prowess. A literal witch hunt with a self-proclaimed “witch hunter” and his adherents in the outer suburbs of Paris aided by TikTok creators and Instagram reels where owning a phone means anyone can be part of the jury condemning an innocent woman is a chilling prospect. Hood Witch is a fable that glides close to real-life attacks on women which happen with limited repercussions in enclaves of society where the “otherness” of the feminine is manifold. The shagginess inherent in parts Belktibia’s vision doesn’t impede his message.
Hood Witch has issues which make it a qualified success, but narrative and pacing flabbiness aside, it’s a powerful rebuke to the men who want to make a woman a “witch” and end up getting one who doesn’t take kindly to them messing with her. Nora’s response to her position is a firm and satisfying, “careful what you manifest.”
Director: Saïd Belktibia
Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Amine Zariouhi, Jérémy Ferrari
Writers: Saïd Belktibia, Louis Penicaut
Producer: Ladj Ly
Music: Flemming Nordkrog
Cinematography: Benoit Soler
Editors: Nicolas Larrouquere, Benjamin Weill
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