ALI ZAOUA, PRINCE OF THE STREETS (Morocco, 2000, 90 min.), directed by Nabil Ayouch; screenplay by Nabil Ayouch and Nathalie Saugeon; cinematography by Vincent Mathias; music by Krishna Levy; with Mounïm Kbab (Kwita), Mustapha Hansali (Omar), Hicham Moussoune (Boubker), Abdelhak Zhayra (Ali Zaoua), Saïd Taghmaoui (Dib), Amal Ayouch (Mother), Mohamed Majd (the fisherman), Hicham Ibrahimi (Hamid, the sailor), Nadia Ould Hajjaj (schoolgirl), Abdessamad Tourab Seddam (Noureddine, the cigarette seller). In Arabic with English subtitles.

A documentary crew is filming a group of chemkaras, street kids. As the camera remains unmoving upon this tableau, the unseen interviewer throws questions at one of them, a boy named Ali. He talks about his life on the streets, his plans, his dreams, his background. He tells her how he fled his home after he overheard his mother contracting to sell his eyes to a foreigner for a huge amount of money. All lies—except for his dream of going to sea.

We next see Ali and his young gang—Kwita, his stolid confidant, hungry for a "normal" life; Omar, bright, angry, needy; and Boubker, the baby of the group, his brain addled by glue, who dreams of being reunited with the uncle who used to beat him, who wants nothing more than to be allowed to share an innocent night’s sleep with the other boys. We will come to see that each of these boys has his dreams and his needs; in fact, it is the interpenetration of the simplest, most childish fantasy with the most sordid and brutal reality that lies at the heart of this film.

Ali reveals to Kwita that he is about to leave Casablanca. He has found a captain who will teach him to sail and who has given him a compass. He will fulfill his dream of becoming a sailor. But his becoming a sailor is just a means to an oneiric end: he dreams of sailing to a magical island in a world with twin suns. It makes one think of Le Petit Prince (and perhaps this is in part where the film gets its title), if one could imagine the Little Prince as a glue-sniffer.

Establishing a pattern that will be repeated throughout the film, reality quickly, brutally intrudes on Ali’s innocent fantasy. We come to learn that Ali and his friends have split off from a larger gang dominated by the mute, scar-faced Dib, a brute with eyes filled with his own pain. This disaffection cannot be tolerated, and Dib and his gang come after them (yelling out their characteristic, cynical slogan: "Life is a pile of shit!") and within moments Ali is dead.

Kwita, Boubkar, and Omar are lost without their charismatic, visionary leader, who could almost make them believe in the possibility of an alternative universe. To accept his death would mean accepting the death of their own hidden dreams and returning to life with Dib. Instead, they decide to in a sense keep Ali alive by keeping his fantasy alive. They will find a way to allow him to pursue his journey to his magic island, even in death. Although the world may see him as just another piece of street trash, the world will learn his hidden identity, that he is in fact Ali, Prince of the Streets.

In their quest to transform Ali into the sailor that he always wanted to be, the trio will be crushed by the impossibility of this project, but ultimately transformed by it in a way that touches those around them—including the viewers of this film.

Except for Saïd Taghmaoui, who plays Dib (whom some will recognize from his appearance in the American film, Three Kings, all the young actors in Ali Zaoua were non-professional "chemkaras" (street kids). Ayouch spent two years getting to know them as he was preparing his film, building an impressive level of comfort and trust with them, which is clearly reflected in their performances.

It was difficult going, as Ayouch relates: "The first days were very hard on the cast and crew. There were many conflicts between the children, due to them having to live with other people, and they ran away a lot. However the crew soon understood that this was no ordinary shoot. They realised what was at stake and very strong bonds were forged between them and the children. A rather strange phenomenon occurred on set. The children began to come to terms with all the constraints of the shoot. They showed solidarity with the project. The discipline which the film imposed on them seemed necessary to them - they welcomed it even."

Treating the children with this level of patience and respect resulted in a film that gives us glimpses of these kids as real human beings, not just sociological ciphers. Indeed, it is interesting to contrast Ayouch’s method in working with these children with the approach that we see in the journalist at the beginning of the film itself. She is presumably there for quick and dirty insights into this social problem. She puts an end to the interview, sounding frustrated at her inability to get Ali to separate fact from fiction. Her attempt to reveal the sociological "truth" of these grimy street hustlers and glue sniffers has collapsed in a series of ridiculous lies. Ayouch reveals to us, however, that these "lies" are not to be simply dismissed; they point to a deeper reality about life on the street for these kids, who have nothing but their fantasies to shield them from brutality and despair.

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Ali Zaoua is director Nabil Ayouch’s second feature film. He was born in France in 1969, son of a Moroccan father and a French mother, but was brought up with close ties to Morocco. He studied theater in Paris for three years, then began making films. His first short film, The Desert’s Blue Stones (1992), is the story of a boy who is considered crazy because of his obsession with the vision of beautiful stones lying in the desert. His second short, The Hertzian Connection (1993), is a spy story set in the world of media, and his third short Vendor of Silence (1994) is about a man who tries to sell peace and quiet. All three films were shown in various international festivals. His first feature film, Mektoub (1997), won several awards and was Morocco’s submission to the Academy Awards, as was Ali Zaoua. Ali Zaoua went on to win the top prize at FESPACO, the premiere festival of African cinema, and nearly 30 other prizes worldwide.

Ayouch has just completed his third feature, A Minute Less Sunshine, a crime drama. He was looking for a "lighter" project following Ali Zaoua. Ironically, his latest film has aroused controversy in Morocco as a result of the Islamic Party’s objections to its presentation of sexuality.

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