Casting a perceptive and tender gaze on her hometown of Zinder, the third largest city in Niger, Aicha Macky’s documentary travels through visions of beauty as well as poverty. The majestic golden-hued landscapes that open the film quickly give way to a more troubling sight: two youths cruising through the impoverished neighbourhood of Kara-Kara on a bicycle, a giant swastika flag in hand.
This startling introduction to one of the local palais – the feared gangs of the area – is evidence of the lack of education that has led to lives of violence and crime. Mistakenly believing Hitler to be an invincible warrior in America, the gang members have adopted his name as an expression of virility. Unable to find steady jobs, most of the young men assert their masculinity by working out, and performing ostentatious feats of strength such as lifting a motorcycle with one arm.
The men’s muscular frames are lined with scars acquired during gang fights or dangerous smuggling deals, and while it takes this in the film also shows the physical and psychological costs of economic precarity. Disenfranchisement is also generational; Kara-Kara was once a leper colony.
Zinder may appear a male-dominated film at first, but as it goes on it breaks out of the stifling cage of machismo to hear the voices of women who have been abused by the gangs. These victims carry their own scars, a reminder of horrors that far exceed the men’s experiences.
Zinder closes with another exercise routine featuring the Hitler gang. What earlier in the film seemed a simple display of physical vigour now comes across as an evocation of the vicious cycle that not only entraps the men but also inflicts unimaginable harm on vulnerable women.
• Zinder is available from 6 October on True Story.
