ASHKAL: THE TUNISIAN INVESTIGATION

Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation, Yellow Veil Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 17, 2023

Set in the aftermath of the successful revolution that overthrew an autocrat in Tunisia, Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation is deeply engrained in local politics, while never offering a helpful explanation of that political backdrop and landscape for outsiders. This is, of course, not entirely the movie's problem, since it is a Tunisian production and aimed at audiences within that country, but even doing some homework on the causes and consequences of the revolution isn't much help. That is, to a slightly larger extent, an issue with the movie itself.

Part of it comes from co-writer/director Youssef Chebbi's lack of narrative focus. In theory, this is the story of the police investigation of multiple deaths by way of immolation in the capital city of Tunis. The lead detectives on the initial case, Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) and Batal (Mohamed Housecine Grayaa), aren't certain if a night watchman at an under-construction apartment complex has died by suicide or was murdered. All they know for certain is he burned alive.

The important part of this death, as well as many others that occur in a similar fashion before the finale, is the method's connection to the revolution that started at the end of 2010. It began when one man set himself on fire in protest against government overreach, leading to mass protests in Tunisia and elsewhere—including some following the man's example. Apart from some brief opening text, little of this recent history is revealed within the narrative, so the overt political aims of Chebbi and François-Michel Allegrini's screenplay, which also involve police corruption and the cover-up of abuse, are mostly left to implication.

Slightly compensating for that is the haunting atmosphere so firmly established by Chebbi, who follows Fatma and Batal as they search for clues amidst the wasteland and darkness of the incomplete buildings. After discovering that a woman died in a similar way in a nearby location and that the local police precinct kept that information away from the two detectives, our protagonists believe a pattern, either of suicides or murders, is beginning. Because Fatma's father is heading a commission looking into the police, no one is keen to offer the pair any help.

More and more people die by fire. Rumors of a man who's capable of creating flame from his hand emerge, and Fatma becomes convinced that finding this mysterious figure is the key to solving the cases and putting an end to any future ones.

The resulting story plays, then, as a low-key horror tale, either about a supernatural killer or an idea spreading like a virus, and a police procedural, in which inherent corruption prevents much procedure from actually happening. There's obviously a deeper story about the revolution and its results—or the lack thereof—in Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation, but the filmmakers seem preoccupied with creating and maintaining an air of doom to make that part of the tale clear.

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