Mektoub

After spending ten years in the United States, where he trained as an ophthalmologist, Taoufik returns to Casablanca. Carefree and hopeful, and assisted by his beautiful young wife Sophia, he wants to start a new practice. While attending a congress in Tangier, they take a chic hotel. Then the nightmare starts. The drink they are given in their hotel contains a powerful narcotic. While Taoufik lies unconscious on the bed, Sophia is kidnapped, raped and thrown back out into the street. When he comes round, Taoufik visits his brother Kamel, a disillusioned policeman, and steals his pistol. Then he goes to the building where his wife was raped. In the fight that breaks out, he shoots one of his attackers. Just when he is about to give himself up, he finds out that the dead man is a senior police officer. So Taoufik and Sophia flee to a place where they are safe from the long arm of the corrupt police system.The début by Nabil Ayouch is a well-made police thriller annex road movie, based on a well-known scandal in Morocco. The main theme is however the relationship between the young doctor and his wife, a relationship that has to be rediscovered after the violent events. At the same time, Taoufik has to find his roots again in a country full of social injustice and the abuse of power.