Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.
I understand exactly why people make films like Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets and I even understand why they are so important. I just wish I didn’t have to watch them. This is a film that is gutting like few others, although Cidade de Deus lands squarely in the same sort of real-world horror of children being forced to grow up long before their time and in the most awful way. This is not a pleasant film by any stretch of the imagination, and while there may be moments of sweetness here, it is filled with the sort of brutality that most of us pretends doesn’t really happen in the real world.
We start with a group of Casablanca street kids being interviewed. The one for whom the film is named, Ali Zaoua (Abdelhak Zhayra) is being interviewed. He claims that he ran away from his prostitute mother because she was going to sell his eyes to someone. He and a small group of friends have left a larger street gang run by Dib (Said Taghmaoui). Shortly after his interview, Ali and his friends are confronted by Dib’s gang. One member of the gang throws a rock that hits Ali on the temple, and Ali soon dies of the wound. So, our title character dies in the first 10 minutes or so of the film.
