Rabia: a shocking film [critique]

A great film about recruitment in the footsteps of a young French woman who chose to join Daesch. Megan Northam is exceptional.

It was the summit of the last French-speaking film festival in Angoulême. Such a shock that we still wonder what bug stung the jury chaired by Kristin Scott-Thomas to snub so violently Rabia on the list and not give it any prizes. The spirit of contradiction undoubtedly. But no matter, other festivals have since rewarded this first feature film by Mareike Engelhardt.

This takes us in the footsteps of Jessica, a 19-year-old French girl who leaves with one of her friends for Syria to join ISIS. A story of an hour and a half without downtime, to the bone, inspired by unfortunately tragically real facts, and born in part from a meeting of the director 8 years ago with a young woman herself returned from Syria where she had spent several months within the Islamic State, even though she spoke no more Arabic than she knew Islam!

And to tell the story of this radicalization which seems so irrational, the filmmaker has chosen a unique angle. The daily life of a house… of future wives of fighters run with an iron fist by Madame, who chooses which girl will be offered to which terrorist. A sort of local Madame Claude who will put Jessica under her control. A character inspired by the Belgian-Moroccan Malika El-Aroud, nicknamed the Black Widow of jihad who had notably been married to one of Commander Massoud's assassins and who Lubna Azabal masterfully portrays.

The big and strong idea of Rabia is to make the story behind closed doors. To translate into images the prison-style trap that is anything but golden which closes on these blinded young women, who have come to seek in Syria a space of freedom which seemed to be lacking in France. And to make what is happening between Jessica and Madame even more violent, perverse and quite quickly unbearable.

A relentlessly masterful film which is never content to break down open doors and adds complexity where simplism is so often required and in which Megan Northam, already remarkable a few months ago in Meanwhile on Earth by Jeremy Clapin, the most impressive book of his young career. With this film and this role, she definitely changes dimension.

By Mareike Engelhardt. With Megan Northam, Lubna Azabal, Natacha Krief… Duration 1h34. Released November 27, 2024