The Battle of Algiers (1966)-Chef-d'oeuvre of War Film
What a vicious film this is! The film of its time in scores of circumstances utmost to the plot that stretches credulity, and more relevant in times we live in than anything else around. Directed by Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo-The Battle of Algiers is a French/Italian language film based on the Algerian War (1954–62).
An absolute chef-d'oeuvre, a true-to-life chronicle of the Algerian people's struggle to overthrow the French colonial government. The movie captures those war reporting, recreating the uprising on the ground to the absolute chord.
The inspiration was way back in 1962, when Gillo Pontecorvo and Franco Salinas, his screenwriter, visit Algiers with false journalist cards- This is few months before July when Algeria was liberated. Gillo and Franco are captivated by the events and approach senior members of FLN, who helped them explore waring zones that were raging then.
Screenwriter Solinas and Pontecorvo and Solinas used all this material to pen an experiences of a former paratrooper, Para, which was ultimately never made. In 1964, Pontecorvo and Saadi Yacef (FLN military commander) met each other, and apparently, Saadi Yacef's book "Souvenirs de la Bataille d'Alger," was planned to be made into a movie.
Gillo was approached by Dalah Baazi, which dates Pontecorvo’s biographer Saadi in an interview in 2004. Saadi states that he went to Italy to seek Pontecorvo, which was inspiring by his work and cleanly aware of his political sympathies. La battaglia di Algeri viz. The Battle of Algiers has literally prohibited screening for five years in France, where it was later released cut in 1971. The film had a great success, winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and is also an Academy nomination for the best foreign category in 1968.
It's the film of a sort, propels special attention among many defence agencies around the world. The deeper information is not only about the actual incidents the movie depicts. This film explores certitude to the core on the subjects of counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and the order that renders the capacity to use violence or to instill fear and to coerce the government or its citizens and draw out vital details. The film to date, is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them.
A classic colonial war of liberation with the French demonize to hold the African colony onto 100 years of Algerian occupation and the resistance been called operations of public order, subsequent to change the course of history. Algeria eventually gained independence from the French, but Pontecorvo relegates that to an epilogue. This incidence's severe cause is also about The pied noirs lobby, which was very powerful in Paris. It pushed for apartheid-like white dominance. The French government was unwilling to address the moderate demands of Algerian nationalist groups- Only to face a systematic attempt by the French than to wipe out nationalists.
The auteur skilfully focuses on the years between 1954 and 1957- The regrouping of guerrilla fighters and expansion into the casbah, which is pronounced as state terrorists, the phase invented by the French themselves. Admiringly, the film is about the systematic build-up of the guerrilla movement. On the other side, colonial power resumes its mean of action and the method used to annihilate it.
The film describes the near documentary style solely in black and white. What struck me most about this film Pontecorvo conceived. The feature examines the importance of the '50s and '60s in specific of World order. Apart from the West's intellectual influence concerning the resistance against communist Soviets, in the heights of the Cold War and the global anti-imperialist response, which link the struggles in Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba, and Angola as well as places in Latin America.
The swinging '60s had many alienated western youths identified and associated with the insurgencies against colonialism and capitalism. The examples are Weather Underground in the US, the Red Brigade in Italy, The Red Army in West Germany. The Prague spring student movement challenged the Soviets.
The Algerian resistance (Armée de Libération Nationale), aka the FLN, is shown to take control of Algiers in what we'd consider being terrorist style. Yet, you're somehow able to identify with them and even live with their decision to bomb four market areas, including a bar and nightclub.
Then there's the French. The anti-hero is Col. Mathieu, played by Jean Martin, who leads a band of paratroopers to restore order. He is a tough, no-nonsense soldier entrusted by France. He is the central to the harbinger, as the film gyrates to the most memorable sequence heading his troop parade down the main street to reassure the local people that the French army is ready to stamp the miscreants.
Col. Mathieu goes on board with a brutal campaign of isolating secret cells, the resistance forces, students, and the brutality against civilians bearing the brunt of offensives show the sign of abating. Thus the prospect of further violation makes the children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the insurgents' will. The movie shows the brutality and inhumanity which exists on both sides of any conflict.
Marcello Gatti's cinematography is another landmark cutting across the shoot through Algiers' narrow lanes riding the handheld camera relying upon the older film stocks to establish the unwinding effects of narration and captivating the impact of documentary, so unique to the soul of the film. Besides, radio broadcasts, amplifying the inscription of the copy-book pattern is mind blogging. Gillo Pontecorvo mentions that The Battle of Algiers used no footage of the newsreel whatsoever.
Gillo Pontecorvo's tour de force—a film with astonishing relevance even today