The film opens with an archaic tale, in brief stylised tableaux, concerning
the divine creation of music. The myth is extended to a universe of sacred
dimensions where it is difficult to differentiate the legend from its current
perpetuation. Where are we? In the Moroccan Rif, in Jajouka, a village where,
for over two thousand years, fertility rites involving music and dance, have
been presided over by Bou-Jeloud, “the Father of Skins”, a local version of
the god Pan.
The Hurtado brothers are famous musicians: their group Etant Donnés came
to prominence through collaborations with various artists including Alan
Vega, Genesis P-Orridge and Philippe Grandrieux (they produced original
soundtracks for several of his films). They are also known as experimental
filmmakers. Here their two passions are combined, raising the challenge of
travelling back in time to hail the Master Musicians of Jajouka, yesterday
and today. Besides, has time passed? It is therefore not about concocting a
score destined to accompany autonomous images, but about making the
music (its strident nudity, its incantatory austerity) and its history the very
substance of the images and the scenario being staged. Their choice was
obviously Pasolinian: to resurrect the archaic while remaining faithful to it,
through the treatment of decor, lighting, acting and costumes. Here, the
beauty lies in the rough friction between the muteness of the characters and
their unbridled momentum towards another potential voice. (JPR)