The Battle of Algiers

Probably the most famous film to be screened at the 1967 New York Film Festival was The Battle of Algiers, a documentary-style drama by Gillo Pontecorvo that detailed the uprising by Algerians to earn independence from France. It is cited as one of the best films to depict guerrilla warfare, and I can't disagree, as there are many shots of hand-held cameras in the middle of turmoil, so it feels like you're right in the middle of it.

The film is framed as a flashback, as the French military has traced down the last of the FLN, the revolutionary group. He is played by Brahim Haggiag, who is first seen playing three-card monte in the street but becomes radicalized in prison (he watches a man being guillotined in the prison yard). He is recruited by the FLN, assigned to kill a policeman, but he is given a gun with no bullets, to test his loyalty.

The head man is played by Saadi Yacef, who was an actual FLN leader and is now an Algerian senator. The other key cast member is the commander of the French military, played by Jean Martin as a compassionate yet seriously competent man. He was the only professional actor used.

In light of what Arab terrorism is like today, this film may make the modern viewer, especially Islamophobes, uneasy, because essentially the Algerians are the good guys. Americans always tend to root for countries who want to break free the shackles of colonialism. It was the 1950s--why should they be ruled by another country? Aside from one man yelling "Allah Akbar!" there is no real Islamic content, though. The French are depicted as villainous, using torture techniques such as water boarding, blowtorches, and electrocution to get information. Not surprisingly, the film was banned in France for five years.

The Battle of Algiers also highlights three women who are part of the FLN. They hide behind burqas, or dress is Western style, all dolled up, to get past security checkpoints. A scene in which two bombs in restaurants go off, placed by the women, plus another at a race track, are played very realistically and raise the question--is the loss of innocent life worth independence? A character says that violence never wins freedom--it's the people that do.

Algeria finally won independence from France in 1962, as the film tells us at the tend. It was a bloody path.