A self-proclaimed disciple of David Lynch, Mohamed Mouftakir's debut feature Pegasus reaches for great heights, but ultimately falls prey to nearly every cliche of the psychological thriller. Zineb is a broken-down psychiatrist who as been assigned to investigate the past of a mysterious woman named Rihanna, who was found huddled on the street, quivering, with another's hair under her fingernails. Through flashbacks we learn of Rihanna's childhood in rural Morocco, where her father, the chief of the tribe, ashamed that he did not have a son, forces his daughter to live as a boy. Her best friend, and later lover, Zayd, who teaches her to read, write, and draw, is Rihanna's only refuge from her authoritarian father. If Pegasus had dropped the rather absurd frame story (spoiler, but not spoiler, as it is made very obvious in a shot early on where we see Zineb talking to no one, Zineb and Rihanna are one and the same), and been only about Rihanna's childhood, this film would have been a great one. The flashbacks are lucid and searing, one can feel the desert heat, and taste the earth. Mouftakir stated that he finds many North African films boring and predictable, but his copying a style that itself is boring and predictable is not the path to making a film that is not boring and predictable. When Mouftakir is tackling themes like incest, trauma, abuse, and power head-on that is when the film is anything but boring and predictable, but when he is trying to throw together a psychological thriller using time-old cliches, Pegasus falls apart. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a great film inside of this one that really wants to burst forth, nor is there any doubt in my mind that Mouftakir has talent, and could prove to be a great filmmaker. His new film, L'orchestre des aveugles, is in post-production and set to premiere this year, and judging by the brief blurb on IMDb, seems to be a variation on this film's themes of childhood and adolescence, but without the ridiculous framing device. I look forward to seeing it.
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