Between 2013 and 2016, as many as 42,000 people from 110 countries followed the banner of the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq – this stunning account, which is the story of recruiting female partners of Islamic militants who become “members of our cause,” serves as the foundation of Rabia. Mareike Engelhardt’s debut feature, which had its international premiere at the Alice nella Città festival, vivisected the indoctrination process of young women with unprecedented intensity, carnal intimacy, and full-bodied paradoxes. 

Lured by the vision of a better tomorrow in the embrace of Allah, two nursing students abandon their faded French daily life to marry a jihadist together (by the way, the film’s later sequences zoom in on the intriguing process of recruiting girls through social media).  

Cells in the body reconstitute themselves every seven years. In seven years, there will be nothing left of our former lives. – A synopsis from Jessica’s assimilated atlas of medicine seems to act as an infamous prescription for the future.  

For after arriving at the mafia – a large matrimonial house where women are segregated and wait to be married, Jessica finds herself in a different “family” – a world of rules and daily life requiring total submission. In this “better tomorrow”, the hard hand in a velvet glove takes care of Madame (a character based on the story of a real Moroccan woman, the creator of the system of female enslavement in Syria), who absorbs the latest news from the frontline of the caliphate for breakfast. Jessica’s character, confused by a past filled with general lack, paradoxically reluctant to fulfill her role as a slave of the system, is torn between conflicting desires – an impulsive need for freedom and an ardent desire to prove her worth.   

Initially acting as a first-order observer to the mechanisms of deception among religious women, the protagonist gradually becomes complicit in the same actions. Thanks to Agnès Godard’s cinematography, the film’s austere aesthetic constantly highlights the moral gray areas Jessica navigates to ensure her survival.   

Rabia provides an engrossing, incredibly eloquent yet feminine and sensitively portrayed portrait of the gray areas inherent in the triviality of evil. The process of gradual transition from the dregs of Iran to the tenure of a matron, performing the role of “weeding out the weeds” (it is not without reason that the name Rabia, which the heroine adopts, can be translated as “anger” or “garden”) is a story of degradation, despite mentioning oneself on the rungs of the social hierarchy. About animal instincts awakening in the viscera and a personal journey through darkness, which bears the hallmarks of both a novel and a documentary (enriched by numerous compelling details). The film, characterized by its condensed and spare emotional power – perfectly captured by cinematographer Agnès Godard – offers an unusually pertinent and intimate insight into a sensitive subject for the West. It is a penetrating observation of a state of confusion and crisis, exploring the disturbing phenomenon of radicalization and manipulation, raising difficult questions about the role of women in extremist and political systems and gender-based violence. 

Rabia shows a no-man’s land created entirely by patriarchy and a psychological portrait of the women who left. The production attempts to understand how radicalization can happen not through grand political ideas, but through close relationships and emotional entanglement. It raises vigilance against extremism and radicalization, and shows that binary, totalitarian thinking is a constant threat in the modern world. 

Karolina Zdunek