The Battle of Algiers

Dir: Gillo Pontecorvo

This is a black and white film, made in 1966 ( a mere 4 years after Algerian independence) about the Algerian nationalist and Muslim terrorist group FLN and the extreme measures France undertook to combat them. Pontecorvo was a die hard communist, and the film certainly bears a strong influence of this. There are signs that some semblence of equilibrium has been aimed for, but largely I found the film to be heavily biased.

According to IMDb, In an obituary for Pontecorvo, Reuters observed that the film, which depicted brutality against civilians by both sides in Algeria's war for independence from France in the 1950s, was shown to Pentagon officers and civilian experts after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The invitation to the screening, the wire service recounted, read, "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas."

Thats a bit rich if you ask me. Thats the sort of thing one expects people working at the Pentagon to be well aware of from the first day they signed on.

I found the film to be rather dated. Most of its thesis is common knowledge in our online age and its imagery isn't all that shocking. Pontecorvo employs a lot of deep contrasts which give the film a 'noir look', but the story fails to establish the mystery of a noir. No doubt this is because we the viewers are already aware that France is doomed to lose Algeria when the film begins. It was most notable that whilst he retained certain religious elements of the uprising, Pontecorvo toned down the wider aspects of Algeria's jihad.