Few will be surprised to find that the title of Lotfi Achour's Red Path has multiple meanings. It starts with two cousins on a simple journey, herding goats through rocky mountain terrain, while they play and gently mock each other. But after 10 minutes, a shocking act of violence and the title screen sets its characters on several physical and emotional journeys.
Red Path is a stunningly captured glimpse into a rural Tunisian family's fear and helplessness in the face of political violence. It draws on the language of epic, realist and documentary cinema to tell a story inspired by tragic true events over a stark and short timeframe.
Ashraf (Ali Helali) and Nizar (Yassine Samouni) are the two young shepherds we follow on a path through the jihadi territory of Mghila Mountain, near to their home in rural Tunisia. Their search for water comes to a brutal end when jihadists attack and behead Nazir. In the hours that follow, the bruised Ashraf must return his cousin's head to his family as a macabre warning, and then contend with the trauma that tears through him and his family.
Menace is everywhere in Red Path. Whether it's the immediate and brutal threat of lurking jihadis, the distant and exploitative State, a surprise landmine, a terrorist video, or the mission the family has to undertake to try and find some kind of peace; everything is soaked in tension and futility. Overall, Red Path manifests a tremendous helplessness, all focused through the experience of Helali's 14-year-old Ashraf.
We don't really see the jihadis or the state apparatus. Although we hear them, it's mainly what we hear about them. Director Achour focuses on the family trapped uselessly between those two insurmountable forces.
To convey this real horror, Achour doesn't skimp on showing the raw beauty of his native Tunisia. The soundscape and visuals are crucial. Stunning photography captures texture in the arid, blanched rock and bright sun floods or spotlights certain scenes. The sound design is perfectly pitched to capture moments of peace and extreme emotion. One early moment sees Ashraf, his awful package, and a nestled kid goat slide down mountain shingle backed by a harrowing audio wall. But often, the soundtrack plaits together quiet moments of indecision with unpredictable fear.
Alongside the stunning cinematography of Wojciech Staroń, Achour makes some brilliant decisions in his second feature to enhance its stark message. Haunting, dream-like sequences sit with occasionally jarring moments of fourth wall-breaking. During the scuffle of a football game, the ball pings off the camera. A short while later, the blood from the ‘message' Ashraf struggles to pass on drips onto the lens, slowly dissolving the frame in a crimson mist.
Naturalistic performances are everywhere, particularly – in this compressed coming-of-age story – Helali's superb turn as Ashraf. Losing his older cousin, experiencing first-hand the danger of the mountain and then seeing his family helpless as ambiguity seeps in, the fast-maturing child appears in almost every scene. Even though most of Red Path's 100 minutes separate Helali and Samouni in life and death, the pair skilfully portray the complexity of cousins as much as the past and future of their wider family. the film's French title reflects that as Les Enfants rouges. That said, it may be Wided Dabebi as Rahma, the girl who provides the crucial extra link between the cousins, who steals the best lines; unfortunately, while she represents a sliver of hope, she carries the film's final despair.
A brief account of real events at the film's close leaves viewers in no doubt about the unending horror that drives the Red Path. Considering its compressed timeline and stark message, some might prefer a more cohesive narrative, or to lose jolting reminders of immediate danger like the landmine scene. But as a study of political turmoil, that takes lives, steals innocence and leaves constant pain in its wake, it's an impressively affecting film.
Red Path is in cinemas now
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