Arlit: Deuxieme Paris

Many Americans are familiar with Niger as a key location in the convoluted scandal involving the White House and CIA operative Valerie Plame, but few have any broader notions about the country. Idrissou Mora Kpai's provocative documentary Arlit: Deuxieme Paris visits a tragic corner of Niger—Arlit, a boomtown built on uranium mines in the 1960s and ‘70s that became a cosmopolitan hub, earning the nickname “Deuxieme Paris” (Second Paris), only to later lose its luster when Niger went through the convulsions of a civil war and the price of uranium collapsed. Today, the city is a mere shadow of its former self: disfigured by poverty, burdened with a workforce dying from mining-related illnesses (passed down to succeeding generations due to a contaminated environment), and disrupted by new “industry” in the guise of human trafficking of would-be immigrants seeking passage to Algeria with the hope of heading to Europe as undocumented workers. Kpai's film places much of the blame on the foreign corporations that ruined Arlit through greed and occupational safety hazards, though more balance might have been achieved if a greater amount of blame was heaped on Niger's corrupt government (including the Niger medical community's inane insistence that miner fatalities are related to smoking). Regardless of where the faults lie, the film's startling imagery of abandoned machinery laying in the desert sands while caravans of emigrants speed away toward a new life abroad will leave the viewer awestruck at the immensity of Niger's human catastrophe. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)