That The Battle of Algiers is a great film is made all the more evident by the lavish treatment it has received from Criterion in its beautifully-boxed, three disc special edition release of 2004. That it is a timely film is indisputable, dealing as it does with colonial exploitation, terrorism, torture, and the inexorable march of history. The story of how this film came about is truly remarkable. The idea for a film about the Battle of Algiers was the brainchild of Director Gillo Pontecorvo and his scriptwriter Franco Solinas, yet the film they ended up making was not the one that they had originally conceived!

Historical Background: Gilberto ("Gillo") Pontocorvo was born on November 19, 1919 in Pisa Italy. He was one of ten children of a wealthy Jewish industrialist. One of his younger brothers became a scientist of world renown, so this was a highly talented family. Gillo was quite apolitical as he was growing up and something of a playboy instead. He played in tennis tournaments, for a while, throughout Europe. In France, Gillo for the first time experienced the diversity of opinions and freedom of thought typical of a democracy, which contrasted sharply with his boyhood experiences in Fascist Italy. In Paris, he made the acquaintance of some of the leading leftist intellectuals and his political thinking was awakened. He was sufficiently influenced by what he learned that he joined the Communist Party in 1941 and worked as a correspondent for some leftist publications. The leaders of the French Communist Party asked him to return to Italy and help organize the anti-Fascist partisans. He fought in the Milan Resistance from 1943 until the liberation.

Shortly after World War II, Pontecorvo saw a screening of Rossellini's Paisan and it was a life-altering experience for him. He decided that he would have to become a filmmaker, bought a camera, and took work as an assistant to Yves Allégret, Mario Monicelli, and other directors. His debut film as a director was The Wide Blue Road (1957). His second film, Kapò (1960), brought him both critical attention and a working relationship with cinematographer Marcello Gatti, who he would use again for his career-making film, The Battle of Algiers (1966). Despite the praise and awards heaped on The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo made only two subsequent films: Burn! (1969), widely considered his second best film, and Orgo (1979). Pontecorvo explains this sparse output as a character defect. He is unable to undertake filming unless he is first fully satisfied with a script. Nevertheless, on the basis of The Battle of Algiers alone, his reputation as a great filmmaker is solidly grounded.

Pontecorvo and Solinas had already drafted a script for a film about the Algerian War when they were approached by Saadi Yacef, the former military leader in Algiers for the Front de Libératon Nationale (FLN) (the insurgents that spearheaded the liberation effort in Algeria). Yacef had been recently released from a French prison and was carrying around a manuscript for a screenplay based on his memoirs, written while he was in prison, detailing the insurrection of the mid-fifties. He was looking for a director with leftist leanings who might want to film his version of events for posterity. After being turned down by Francesco Rosi and Luchino Visconti, Yacef offered his screenplay to Pontecorvo. Pontecorvo and Solinas agreed to take a look at it but it was so blatantly one sided that they could not agree. Instead, they offered to write a script based on Yacef's writings but balancing it with some of the French side of the story. Yacef agreed and also became co-producer of the film, putting up 45% of the funding. The result was a film that was meticulously even-handed though ultimately sympathetic to the struggle for independence. It was condemned in France (where it was banned until 1971), but widely acclaimed everywhere else, taking the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in its year of release.

The native Algerians are a unique ethnic group, formed by the intermarriage of Arabs that invaded North Africa after 600 A.D. with the nomadic Berbers that had occupied the country since about 3000 B.C. The French occupation of Algeria began in 1830, during the reign of Charles X, but it took until 1871 for the French to fully pacify the Algerians. When France lost the Alsace-Lorraine territory in the Franco-Prussian War, many of the French Catholics from those provinces fled and relocated in Algiers. These European settlers became known as colons and, later, pied-noirs. In contrast to their colonies in Tunisia and Morocco, the French ruled Algeria as a district of France itself and the colons were French citizens. The native Algerians were theoretically eligible for French citizenship as well, but the colons established policies making it very difficult so as to limit the influence of the native Algerians. The colons controlled both the government and the economy of the country. The Algerians repeatedly attempted to achieve greater equality by every conceivable peaceful means, but were thwarted every time. During World War II, many Algerians were drafted into service for France and the units composed mainly of native Algerians were often assigned the most hazardous tasks. The Germans occupied Algeria early in the war but were driven out by the Allies in 1942. The Algerians quite naturally felt that their service in the war had earned them equality of status, but the colons continued to block every effort of the native population to achieve influence in proportion to their numbers. The social structure of the country was essentially apartheid. In Algiers, for example, the European sector of the city consisted of a modern European style city while the native Algerians lived in poverty in cramped quarters called the Casbah. The finest beaches on the Mediterranean were reserved for the colons while the natives were relegated to the pebbled ones. Frustrated at the lack of progress through peaceful means, some of the Algerians formed the FLN in 1954, issuing the First Proclamation (highlighted near the film's beginning) on November 1st of that year.

The Story: As the film opens, French interrogators have just finished torturing an old Algerian man to extract information about the hiding place of the last surviving leader of the insurgents, Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag). La Pointe is hiding behind a false wall with another man, a woman, and a boy. The French commander, Colonel Mathieu (Jean Martin), gives Ali thirty seconds to come out peacefully, offering him a "fair trial." As he contemplates the offer, he quickly recalls all that has led to the present fateful moment, which we see in flashback.

Two years earlier, Ali had been just a petty criminal – a con man and drug dealer. He had been arrested for striking a colon after being intentionally tripped and for disobeying a French police officer. It was in prison that Ali had become politicized, coming into contact with prisoners who were already committed members of the FLN. He had watched one of their number marched off to the guillotine. After his release, Ali had become an enforcer and leader of the FLN, taking orders directly from Djafar (Jacef Saadi), head of the FLN in Algiers. The FLN begins to make its presence felt, issuing its First Communiqué, organizing its ranks in a pyramidal structure in which each operative knows few others in the organization, eliminates opposition among the Muslim natives, and prepares to do battle.

When a number of FLN members are executed, the FLN retaliates by killing French policemen and civil servants. The French then decide to seal off the Casbah from the European sector, establishing checkpoints. The checkpoints prove mostly ineffective. The Muslim women are still able to smuggle guns through the checkpoints under their burqas. A large bomb set by French agents goes off in the heart of the Casbah, killing 75 and wounding 150 residents. Djafar chooses three Algerian women who can pass for European, has them remove their burqas, shorten and lighten their hair, and change into European style dress. They plant bombs in three locations frequented by Europeans. Portecorvo is at great pains here to let us dwell on the gay, laughing faces of the innocent young people, in a café and a bar, about to die in the bomb blasts.

In response to these acts of terrorism, the French send in paratroopers under Colonel Mathieu, a dashing officer. He organizes a strategy that hinges on identifying the organizational structure of the FLN. They'll start with random young men of the Casbah and extract information via systematic torture. Then, following each operative to his contact person, they'll work their way to the top and excise, in the words of the Colonel, the tapeworm's head. From here, the conflict proceeds to the conclusion that history records. The French win the Battle of Algiers but ultimately lose the Algerian War.

Themes: Though the particulars of this film are specific to Algeria, the general issues are universal – wherever colonialism, occupation, or imperialism exist. It is interesting that this film has been used by both terrorist groups (such as the Black Panthers) and counter-terrorist agencies (such as the CIA and Pentagon), though apparently mainly for tactical issues rather than its larger thematic context. Both types of groups appear to be missing the main lessons of this film. One of the themes illustrated effectively in this film is that terrorism is basically a military tactic that will be used inevitably by a weaker group against a stronger one. This point is underscored by a bit of dialogue that occurs part way through the film after one of the leaders of the FLN, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, is captured and given a press conference. One of the reporters asks whether it isn't cowardly to have bombs carried in baskets to public places by Muslim women. M'Hidi quite sensibly replies, "Is it any less cowardly to bomb villages from planes with napalm? Give us your planes and we'll give you our baskets." Developed countries object to terrorism as a military tactic because they know that the other side can't win by any conventional means. Viewed objectively, however, is a so-called "smart bomb" delivered by a missile that destroys a residential neighborhood in Baghdad any less immoral than a bomb delivered in a basket or attached to a suicide bomber? Are the one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq any less dead than the poor souls in the twin towers of New York City killed on 9/11? Each side in a conflict wants to claim that their own methods are "conventional" but the other side's are "vile." Terrorism is simply a tactic that is one of the few workable options for a weaker party against a stronger one. American colonists used terrorism in their War of Independence.

Terrorism can be employed both by groups with just causes and those with unjust ones. It is the justice of the cause that determines the morality of terrorism. Given the unconscionable exploitation of the native Algerians by the colons, their fight for liberation was clearly just. The civilian colons were fully invested in maintaining their privileged position of control in Algeria and thereby made themselves legitimate targets for attacks by the FLN. Each person has to decide for himself whether the causes of other groups using terrorist tactics around the world – such as the Palestinians, Al-Qaeda, the Irish Catholics, or the Basque separatists – are just or unjust. There was little moral ambiguity in the situation in Algeria. The French were oppressors denying the native Algerians equality of opportunity or influence. A lot of critics reviewing this film are adrift in moral relativism, imagining that one side's view in a conflict is always as good as the other's. Some international conflicts entail credible moral justifications on both sides, but other times there is only one party with a defensible moral position.

The threat of terrorism for developed countries depends as much on motivation as capacity for terrorism. One of the most revealing observations on the Criterion DVD set for this film was a statement made by Saadi Yacef, the former leader of the insurrection in Algiers and the film's co-producer. He states, "Their torturing and killing of citizens made it easier for us to gain followers. It was a stroke of luck for us. If you kill someone, they have a brother and a cousin, and they would join the FLN. So, during 1955-6, the FLN grew from having 50% of the population's support to 95%." The morality of a country's policies is critical for precisely that reason. When an occupying power engages in acts of random retaliation, torture, summary executions, murder, and mayhem, it provides terrorist organizations exactly what they need for their recruitment effort. The French paratroopers suppressed the insurrection in Algiers using the most brutal tactics. They thereby won the Battle of Algiers but later lost the war. In the long run, the side with the moral high ground wins because they are motivated for as long as it takes.

The French troops systematically tortured thousands of Algerian prisoners to extract information, even knowing that only about 3-5% of those they arrested had such information. In a note to his troops, General Massu wrote, "The sine qua non of our actions in Algeria is for these methods ['forceful interrogations'; i.e., torture] to be accepted in our hearts and minds as necessary and morally valid." When a country or its military or police accept torture as morally valid, they have sold their souls to the devil. To their credit, a few Frenchmen involved in the Algerian War understood that torture can never be morally justified, but especially for a country that is fighting to defend colonial occupation. One officer (Teitgen) who resigned put it this way, "I was tortured in 1943 (several times by the Gestapo). They knew how to humiliate a man, how to deprive him of all respect, how to reduce him to nothing. Then there was the Dachau concentration camp. That was enough for me. I couldn't bear the French acting the same way." Now, it is our own American forces using torture as a tactic. Imagine the use the rebels in Iraq can make of those pictures of American soldiers humiliating Muslim detainees. Those torture sessions may facilitate short-term progress, but it motivates long-term expansion of terrorism. A populace that reelects a leadership that authorized torture as a tool in its anti-terrorist activities exposes itself to future terrorism.

Production Values: The script for The Battle of Algiers was a masterpiece of detached objectivity. This film illustrates how much more effective a balanced treatment of a topic can be than blatant propaganda. Pontecorvo wins the confidence of his audience and shows us, in the end, that the moral superiority of the insurgent cause is undeniable. Pontecorvo explains in an interview that he was always drawn to scripts that related to "man's struggle to improve his lot and the struggle against colonialism was one such situation."

The Battle of Algiers looks as though it's the real thing – as though it were some kind of amazing documentary footage. Pontecorvo and his cinematographer used a special filming technique that they had developed for Kapò (1960) that provided a grainy kind of documentary-like look. Then, all of the events were staged at the actual locations where they had occurred. With Yacef as co-producer, Pontecorvo and his crew had unlimited access to the Casbah and other locations. The shots in the streets, back alleys, and houses of the Casbah are exceptional. This is, of course, the same Casbah locale that was featured in Julien Duvivier's great film Pépé le Moko (1937). Pontecorvo actually had the block of houses that had been blown up when Ali La Pointe was killed rebuilt and then blown up again for the filming. Pontecorvo uses a lot of quick cuts to keep the action fast-paced.

The ubiquitous Ennio Morricone provided the soundtrack. Pontecorvo was something of a musician himself and wrote the music for some of his own earlier documentaries, so Morricone had to put up with more interference from Pontecorvo, with his thematic selections for the musical score, than he typically tolerated from other directors. The result, however, is splendid.

The cast included only one professional actor, Jean Martin as Colonel Mathieu, and even he had only stage experience rather than prior film experience. Pontecorvo elicits such natural performances that it all comes across as the real thing. Some of the best scenes are the crowd scenes and street fighting scenes featuring hundreds of extras drawn from the people of the Casbah. Pontecorvo was obsessed with finding exactly the right faces to match what he had imagined for each role during the script preparation. For the part of an FLN member who is sent to the guillotine early in the film, Pontecorvo actually selected an incarcerated man who was under a death sentence – to ensure that he would look the part!


Bottom-Line: The Criterion DVD version of this film is jam-packed with special features. Disc one has the film itself in a beautiful anamorphic transfer that strikes a perfect balance between clarity and the grainy appearance that Portecorvo intended. Disc two includes a 37-minute documentary about Porecorvo narrated by critic Edward Said, a 51-minute documentary on the making of the film, and a 17-minute interview with five modern directors about the film's influence. Disc three adds a 69-minute documentary on the Algerian War, a 28-minute documentary with former French military officers about the use of torture during the conflict, a 25-minute roundtable discussion with two American counter-terrorism experts and former government officials, and a 58-minute travelogue featuring Portecorvo's first return visit to Algiers after almost three decades.

The Battle of Algiers is a very special film. It won awards at some ten festivals. It is highly engaging and as pertinent today as it ever was. Every American should take a look at this film for their political education. The film is in French and Arabic with new and improved English subtitles. The Criterion DVD special edition is as fine a film package as you'll ever encounter.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from France:

Alphaville
Amélie
La Belle et la Bête
Bob le Flambeur
Le Boucher
Boudu Saved from Drowning
A Bout de Souffle
La Cage aux Folles
Céline and Julie Go Boating
La Cérémonie
La Chèvre
Children of Paradise
Cléo from 5 to 7
Contempt
Un Coeur en Hiver
Cyrano de Bergerac
Delicatessen
The Dinner Game
Diva
The Earrings of Madame de . . .
Entre Nous
Eyes Without a Face
La Femme Nikita
Forbidden Games
French Cancan
Grand Illusion
Harvest
Hate
The Horseman on the Roof
Jean de Florette/Manon
The King of Hearts
Last Year at Marienbad
Life and Nothing But
Madame Rosa
A Man Escaped
Le Million
Monsieur Hire
The Mother and the Whore
La Nuit de Varennes
Pépé le Moko
Peppermint Soda
Playtime
Providence
Rififi
La Ronde
Round Midnight
The Rules of the Game
Le Samourai
Summer
A Sunday in the Country
The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe
Three Colors
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Vagabond
Wages of Fear

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older