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on their shoulders the head of the lion on a platter which they place ceremoniously in front of
Athos sr. The latter sits silently and pensively at the head of a table; like a premonition, this
scene reinforces the parallel between the destiny of the lion and that of Athos, implying a
tragic conclusion for his personal drama. Affectively, the scene is designed to elicit a general
sense of unease by contrasting the friends' boisterousness with Athos's melancholy.
Moreover, the fact that the event occurs in Draifa's house reinforces suspicions of her
complicity in a possible plot against Athos sr. A later sequence depicts Athos sr. in the centre
of a courtyard as he is beaten by his three acquaintances, whose lack of mercy is rendered
more unpleasant by Athos's silent submission. Here the allegory is laden with religious
influences, since the framing and the characters' behaviour evoke iconography representing
Christ being flogged by Roman soldiers. Despite the scene's insertion in a sequence implying
that Athos sr. has 'betrayed' his colleagues, the sequence cues compassion towards him, an
effect which also triggers a cognitive evaluation from viewers regarding the extent to which
the narrative has suppressed information relating to this dramatic sequence of events, and it
fosters doubts about possible distortions in the recounting of the episode.
Obstructing the identification process
A consequence of the film's fragmented narration is that viewer engagement with the film's
characters even at the basic level of the 'recognition' criterion (M. Smith, 1995: 75) is
uncertain since although the narrative features characters from identifiable socioeconomic
backgrounds and with distinctive regional accents and idiosyncratic behaviour, the lack of
individual information about them and their past makes it difficult for viewers to conceive of
them as fully rounded characters. Nevertheless, narrative access to the actions and feelings of
Athos jr. is sustained so that despite similar lacunae in his characterization, a degree of
viewer alignment is likely to occur; Athos jr. is the locus of diegetic action, and the
confrontation with the mystifying and threatening behaviour of Tara's inhabitants increases
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