This is a typical story of small view, "Beauty and the Hound" only intercepts one night, a girl's encounter, a few scenes, shielding the outside, abandoning the background, and even the lines and dialogue are intermittent, only quarrels, broken sentences, and the girl's cry of fear, it exposes the tip of the iceberg, enough for people to make up the whole picture of the iceberg. Compared with the aesthetics and techniques of the film itself, this kind of film is more like a kind of social criticism, piercing into reality and the present in the form of images, and carving a special moment into history.
The story takes place in Tunisia on the eve of the Arab Spring, the ordinary girl Mariam meets a handsome boy Yusef at the party, the two of them leave the party together, after which everything takes a sharp turn, Mariam is raped by several policemen in the car, and an angry Yusef takes the panicked Mariam to the hospital for examination, retains evidence, and goes to the police station to report the crime, but encounters unimaginable obstacles. It is said that it is small and large, because it only presents clues to personal encounters and reversals of fate, but it can already reflect that the vast external world is ushering in an irrepressible upheaval.
"Beauty and the Hound" is divided into 9 chapters, each of which is completed by only one long shot, which follows the girl and the boy stumbling into the hospital, blending into the night, going to the police station, standing on the street at a loss... Like a documentary, forced to look, faithfully recorded, only highlighting the girl's own panic and heartbeat. If you take this story apart and reveal the prototype, you will find that it is a Don Quixote story — a weak individual who attempts to challenge the vast state apparatus and, after experiencing intimidation and humiliation, becomes brave and strong. Obviously, such changes and the growth of inner strength are projections of the director's self-vision, and the girl Mariam is condensed into the shadows of those helpless citizens.
The story is full of subtle details and intriguing little symbolism. Initially, in the hospital, the girl, dressed in a party skirt and wearing makeup that had already cried, stood between a group of helpless patients and an irritable doctor, the corridors were dimly lit and people were bored, and the boy dragged her to the nurse and told the other party that the girl had been sexually assaulted and needed to be examined and evidence preserved. The other party's indifference and indifference make people feel strange, but in that social background to think about it and think that everything is logical, the medical staff is like a mischievous child, the action is lazy, the mood is excited, the female nurse wrapped in a turban looks at the girl's short skirt with a scrutinizing gaze, there is no sympathy in the eyes, more schadenfreude. The meaning of "slut-shaming" is already meant to be overshadowed. Meanwhile, the girl meets a female journalist in the hospital, leaving her a phone call, and she speaks out about the possibility of justice, but the reporter leaves quickly, which leaves a clever foreshadowing for the subsequent plot. After that, the girl and the boy decide to go to the police station, first encountering a group of male police officers who are hostile to the girl who comes to report the crime, and then a pregnant female police officer conducts a preliminary treatment, both men and women, and the weak people who come to ask for help are equally cold and tired, not to mention that when the girl finds out that the police officer who has abused her is in this police station, everything is almost in ruins.
The girl's short skirt, heavy makeup, bare skin have been emphasized by the camera, the surrounding eyes are burning, the victim seems to have suddenly had some kind of guilt, in the police station, she asked the female police for a dress, but the search was unsuccessful, only found a scarf, she wrapped the scarf around herself, from head to toe, an open, cheerful modern girl in order to protect herself suddenly became a woman wrapped in tradition, the use of this scarf is wonderful, has a practical role in the narrative, but also refers to the spiritual symbolism. The female reporter who was used as a life-saving straw by the girl, when the phone was connected, the signal was intermittent and eventually ineffective, which became another metaphor. Female repression, slut-shaming, failure of supervision, expansion of power, moral decay, all this repression is fully expressed in one night, and the only bright thing in the whole story is that the policeman who still has good intentions can still maintain his conscience in the sauce pot.
What the hounds in "Beauty and the Hounds" refer to, clear and self-evident, there are several grumpy police dogs in the police station, locked in iron cages and barking at girls, while the real "hounds" have bitten their teeth into people's flesh and blood. The girl's break free and the final victory is a rebirth- ascension, a night of torture and fear, in exchange for a spiritual rebirth, but for the whole society, how long does it take to see the dawn, and who will tame the vicious dog?