Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets

It's quite a film that kills off it's title character in the first ten minutes. This is a pretty frank and brutal film that manages to build to a pretty moving climax. That's a tough balance to achieve.

This tale of Casablanca street kids who struggle to bury their friend and deliver him to the sea he loved gets more sentimental as it goes on, but I was easily won over by the remarkable performances of the kids and the gritty city life revealed by a slow-moving camera.

Some say it's overly sentimental, I found it to be, at its best, winsome poetry

Sokak çocuklari, baliciler, gömülmeyi bekleyen ceset (Ali denizci olmak isteyen bir sokak cocugudur. bir gün ayrildiklari cete tarafindan öldürülür. üc arkadasi Ali'yi gömmeye karar verirler. Ali'nin annesi hayat kadinidir. Filmin sonunda Ali'ye denizci kiyafeti gidirilip, denize acilirlar. annesi ve arkadaslari. ) fena film degil, küfürlü konusma var. kücük cocugun zekeri görünüyor.

You know you're in trouble when the film kills off its best character in the first five minutes. Cheaply won sentiment is the rule here, which is too bad, as the setting and circumstances seem ripe for a good film. As a result of the many poor and obvious decisions by the filmmakers, the film feels exploitative of the plight of street kids in Casablanca and the world over. The brief animated sequences were a terrific touch, but otherwise, just see Los Olvidados instead.

A little simplistic and manipulative, but it was effective so I can't complain too much. The children do a really good job and while I was watching the emotions really ran high. It took some interesting turns, especially in the first half, and while it settled back in the second half it was still a strong experience.

TSOTSI!

This is familiar ground. Different city, different children, same old story. I'm very interested in Moroccan culture, but this film didn't do anything for me. The characters were barely tolerable, other than the title character, but he's not in it enough to save the film. If you swoon over sentimentalism and big-city orphans, maybe you'd enjoy it, but it's not my style.

Kind of a Salaam Bombay (or Los Olvidados, or City of God...) in Morocco. It's hard for material like this to avoid sentimentality, unfortunately Ali Zaoua doesn't even try. The constant harping on Ali's dreams to be a sailor and the really obvious character moments made my eyes roll frequently. The short animated sequences were nice, though... a child's drawings come to life.