Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue (2000) Reviews

• A powerful and realistic film despite being a bit too sentimental at times

  bob the moo2005-02-22

  Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are runaways living rough on the streets of Morocco. Having split from the gang of the much older Dib because of being raped, the four live at the port, where Ali dreams of becoming a sailor because of the stories his mother used to tell him years before. When Dib and his gang turn up looking for a fight, Ali is truck with a rock and dies soon after. His friends plan to bury him but it is not long before the stresses start to break them apart; Kwita starts working with the sailor who had taken Ali in while Omar visits Ali's prostitute mother for the first of several times. I'm not sure why I happened to end up watching this film but I am glad that I did because the story is not one that you hear often enough – that of the many kids who live on the streets of third world cities. Here the story is set about the friends trying to bury Ali in a manner that is fitting the dreams he had when he was alive but the film uses this to also show us the world of poverty, fear and abuse that street kids suffer. It is this aspect that kept me interested and it is depressing and rather powerful. The main story has a tendency towards a sentimentality that I suspect the street has little room for in reality. In my case though I was into the characters enough to be able to forgive this although you can't help feeling that the dark touches are really more of these kids' lives than just the mentions that the script gives them. What really makes the film work though is the natural and convincing performances from the majority of the cast. Hansali won it for me because he seems so very beaten and totally convincing. Kbab seems less at home on the street but has more character and more maturity; meanwhile Moussoune is heartbreaking as the youngest of the group. Taghmaoui's Dib is pretty poor and is written as a basic Fagin character and he is not as exploitative and abusive as the script implies that he is. However the lead actors carry it and they are depressingly convincing. Overall this is a great little film that manages to cover its weaknesses with its strengths and delivers a depressing tale even if it does tend to be a bit too sentimental for its own good. If nothing else it adds to the profile of a problem as is as complex as it is hopeless.

• Even better than "City of God!"

  turkam2004-02-17

  This is an amazing film. It has to be up there with "City of God" and "Pixote" (Brazil), "At- The Horse" (Turkey), "Saalam Bombay" (India) and "Amores Perros" (Mexico) as well as the American documentary "Streetwise" as one of the best contemporary movies about poverty and the social repression and horrors it brings to its subjects. The film is engrossing, captivating, disturbing and harrowing on many levels. The film is also a remarkable fusion of Godard, gangster films and "Arabian Nights." A shocking thing happens to the film's title character at the outset of the film, and we are transported into a world that is both enchating and perilous as if we are traveling with Sinbad across the 7 seas. Alas, this is no fantasy and we are reminded of that all too suddenly and it is a power that haunts the viewer as the final credits roll. The film also reminds one of our great independent filmmakers, like Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch in terms of applying simplicity to brilliant and stark primary and secondary characters thus allowing a documentary feel to float with the narrative. Alas, when one is from Morroco as this filmmaker is, it usually takes two or three major efforts like this before you are recognized as being a cinematic genius. One of the best African films I've seen, along with "Quartier Mozart" from Cameroon, and certainly worth one's time.

• An Unforgettable Very Sensitive and Moving Low Budget Movie

  claudio_carvalho2004-07-10

  In the streets of Casablanca, the homeless boys Kwita, Omar and Boubker, leaded by Ali Zaoua, the son of a prostitute, leave the gang of Dib. The dream of Ali is to become a sailor and navigate with his mother to an isolated island with two suns. However, the four friends are attacked by Dib's gang and Ali dies, hit by a stone on the head. Kwita, Omar and Boubker hide the body in a hole, while trying to get money for a special funeral for the `prince' Ali. This movie is one the most sensitive and moving stories I have ever seen, comparable to the 1950 Luis Buñuel's masterpiece `Los Olvidados' and 1981 Hector Babenco's `Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco'. Indeed, it is a low budget movie, supported by outstanding director and infantile cast and a wonderful and never corny story. It is impossible not having the emotions affected or even cry with such a beautiful conclusion of a marvelous drama. My vote is ten. Title (Brazil): `As Ruas de Casablanca' (`The Streets of Casablanca')

• a film from another world...

  july24christina2003-09-22

  This is definitely one of the best films that i've seen lately. It tells the story of Moroccan street children who live in the filth of the gutters of present-day Casablanca. These homeless urchins, with a few exceptions, make up a gang of at least 75-100 kids who pick pockets, sniff glue and are led by Dib, a modern-day Fagin. A band of 3 ids, following a dreamer- Ali Zaoua, splits from this gang. When Ali is killed by a kid from the gang, the story begins. We follow these children as they try to give Ali a funeral, and what we see in their world is at times terrifying, or at least extremely upsetting and unsettling. Part of what makes the film so effective is that the children are not actors- they are real street children. they are not Hollywood's dirty Orphan Annies, in pre-stained clothing and manufactured dirt- they are real. Dib is one of the few professional actors in the film. It is at times difficult to see because of this. Still, Ali Zaoua is an extremely good and possibly great film.

• "The whole world will cry..."

  poe4262007-09-25

  Life sometimes is a four-letter word. (More often than not.) The "enfant ensemble" in ALI ZAOUA couldn't be more perfectly cast (in view of the facts, in fact, better casting would be literally impossible). The nighttime musings of these kids as they drift off to sleep in the movie says it all: "When I'm dead, I'll be filthy rich." As mentioned elsewhere in these comments, I used to drive a cab. One night, I picked up a woman and three kids and took them from a very, very dangerous neighborhood to a slightly less lethal locale. The woman asked me to wait and left the kids in the cab with me as she ducked into a house. I waited (somewhat impatiently) and listened to the kids talking in the seat behind me. They spoke in awed whispers. "What does it look like?" "It's big- about this big." "What's it taste like?" "You'll see." I found myself grinding my teeth in anger. The woman emerged from the house and asked me if I could just wait a minute longer, that "he" was "on his way." I reluctantly agreed, but vowed that I would take my dispatcher to task for sending me on yet another drug run. The next thing I know, a pizza delivery driver pulls up. The woman rushes to him, pays him for two pizzas, and climbs back into the cab with them. I drive her back to her own neighborhood and ask her why she had the pizza delivered to another neighborhood. "Because the pizza guys won't deliver in our neighborhood." There are times, I swear, when it all gets to me. If you get a chance, see ALI ZAOUA and see what I mean.