Zerzura Directed by Christopher Kirkley

Zerzura

Directed by Christopher Kirkley

Starring: Ahmoudou Madassane, Ibrahim Affi, Zara Alhassane, Habiba Almoustapha, Rhissa Elryin, Rhissa Koutata, Guichene Mohamed

Year: 2017

Country: USA

Author Review: Roberto Matteucci

"Gold is here, take it."

Zerzura is an imaginative place belonging to the African tradition. There is a link between a lush oasis and the fantastic city, in fact, it is described as "Supposedly a paradise of lush palm and bubbling springs … somewhere in the burning wastes of the Libyan desert. " (1)

Born as an illusion, a hallucination during the crossing of the desert, people dream of an oasis, a place of refreshment, while they are dazed by the heat and the sun.

Therefore, Zerzura exists, it is true, it is real for desert travellers. The chatters, the discussions in the hot nights of the stops, around only an endless sand and a starry sky above, can create a truth.

In fact, despite the illusion "... not stopped people looking for it, and much of the early pioneering exploration of the Sahara was carried out by those hoping to track down this curious forgotten watering hole." (1)

Important adventurers travelled to his research and even they founded the Zerzura Club among the explorers dedicated to the discovery of the city.

Arriving there is not easy, both because you have to walk for kilometres in the desert, and because it is necessary "... spells and incantations required to ward off the evil spirits who guard those riches." (1)

It is a sword the magic object used by Ahmoudou to defend himself from djinn. Ahmoudou is the protagonist of the film Zerzura by the director and ethnographer Christopher Kirkley.

In Niger, in the desert, a nomad family lives. In the small community, the kids chase a bird, because "there is a bird called a thief of children."

The camera shoots into details, in the particulars of the desert, the vegetation, the shrubs.

There are three men inside Ahmoudou's beautiful coloured tent. They talk about drought, but they are not angry, they are not worried, they are resigned "you must have patience" because devotion to God must be total, only God decides.

The static camera shoots the three men while Ahmoudou elegantly pours tea, despite the poverty. They go out and walk in the desert, taken from behind in the thigh shot.

"What pushes you to leave?" Is the mother's question to Ahmoudou. The family has a sorrow, a torment kept hidden, they never talk about it, but everyone suffers.

Boutali, the brother of Ahmoudou, has left the house for a long time and has no longer sent news. The mother's desperation transforms her sorrow into feigned indifference.

So Ahmoudou wants to find him.

It is a journey on foot in the desert, everything is slow, calm, silent, quiet, the destination is Agadez, a city in Niger.

In the first part the author describes the calm with the same language: relaxing long shot, nature moves slowly as if driven by something supernatural. The desert is shot towards the infinite, with a perspective. The sun is at different heights, Ahmoudou walks and camels pass calmly and slowly in front of him.

He meets other nomads, they do not know each other, but they are welcomed friendly, the tone is still the same: "news?" "All as usual." There is the drought, it is not the first time and will not even be the last.

He arrives at Agadez, and he discovers his brother departures towards the incredible riches of Zerzura. Agadez for the nomads is like a metropolis. Around there are confusing, traffic, disorder, crowded places, and so many people doing nothing. Ahmoudou feels lost: a circular perspective on the chaos of the streets, then the close-up, and again a perspective.

Ahmoudou meets Doka the sorcerer, and he confirms of Boutali's departure for Zerzura. Zerzura is the city that no one has ever seen and at the same time is "the place everyone speaks about". How to reach a city never seen before? It is a seven-day journey in the desert with many hard challenges to face.

It is the second part of the story. Dissimilar, particular, refined, fantastic. He has to challenge numerous djinn on the road. He immediately discovers the difficulties because he has an exciting nightmare, alive, premonitory, with many faces and many fires.

He is immediately faced with the greed of gold hunters. They are crazy, they are afraid of losing a non-existent treasure. They are bad and have a narrow mind. Ahmoudou's comment is definitive: "May God protect us from gold hunters."

Later he was attacked, wounded and abandoned without water by the bandits.

The trip continues, finally arrives in some unfinished buildings of a city. Inside there are ghosts, some djinn. He has hallucinations. The buildings are strange, visionary, as designed by a drunken Gaudi, with stairs without any destination.

He faces the last devil, he lives together with all the wealth of the world. He corrupts him with all the property present but Ahmoundou - symbolically - stabs the gold and everything disappears.

He finds his brother, and they return home, the children are still chasing the bird.

The characteristic of the film is Ahmoundou's guitar, accompanies the whole story. It is a captivating music, it coincides with the fabulous tome, especially of the second part. However, the visions, the subjective and above all the soft focus games, in many scenes, coincides with a human search, both in the selfishness of the gold hunters and in the reflective calm of the nomads.

Christopher Kirkley uses the ethnographic language with the many details of the vegetation, of the oases. The static camera, the linear editing, or the detail of the beautiful eyes of the boy are ways to describe the life of the nomads, as it should be. Night prayer, trip on the back of a camel are relaxing, not forced. Even the continuous mantra of the nomads "This year the drought is really bad" makes the aridity fake, because they recite it quietly as if it were a prayer.

Drought is like the evident poverty, it is not important, it is a problem but it is not possible to change the tradition and the life of endless generations of nomads. The mother advises against leaving "here we live better than in the city" and it's true, the director shows it as totally different, a place to get away from it quickly.

Zerzura is a different city with innumerable and dangerous djinn. Its existence is the metaphor of a richness not to be sought at the end of the journey but simply inside one's own departure tent.

(1) Paul Sussman, The Hidden Oasis, Bantam Books, London, 2009