La battaglia di Algeri- The Battle of Algiers (1966)
The Battle of Algiers (Italian: La battaglia di Algeri) is a 1966 war film based on occurrences during the Algerian War (1954–62) against French colonial occupation in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The film has been critically celebrated and often taken, by insurgent groups and states alike, as an important commentary on urban guerilla warfare. It occupies the 120th place on Empire Magazine's list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
SUBJECT The Battle of Algiers reconstructs the events that occurred in the capital city of French Algeria between November 1954 and December 1960, during the Algerian War of Independence. The narrative begins with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah. Then civil war between native Algerians and European settlers (pied-noirs) in which the sides exchange acts of increasing violence, leading to the introduction of French army paratroopers to hunt the National Liberation Front (FLN). The paratroopers are depicted as winning the battle by neutralizing the whole of the FLN leadership either through assassination or through capture. However, the film ends with a coda depicting demonstrations and rioting for independence by native Algerians, suggesting that although France won the Battle of Algiers, she lost the Algerian War.
The tactics of the FLN guerrilla insurgency and the French counter insurgency, and the uglier incidents of the war, are shown. Colonizer and colonized commit atrocities against civilians. The FLN commandeer the Casbah via summary execution of native Algerian criminals and other (considered) traitors, and applied terrorism to harass the civilian French colonials. The French colonialists resort to lynch mobs and indiscriminate, racist violence against the natives to hand. Paratroops routinely torture, intimidate, and murder in combating the FLN insurgents. Pontecorvo and Solinas have several protagonists, based on historical war figures. The story begins and ends from the perspective of Ali la Pointe (Brahim Hagiag), a petty criminal who is politically radicalized while in prison, and is then recruited to the FLN, by the (fictional) military commander El-hadi Jafar (Saadi Yacef, playing a character based on himself).
Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu, the paratroop commander, is the principal French character. Other characters are the boy Petit Omar, a street urchin who is an FLN messenger; Larbi Ben M'hidi, a top FLN leader, is the film’s political rationale for the insurgency; Djamila, Zohra, and Hassiba, three FLN women urban guerrillas who affect a revenge-attack. Moreover, The Battle of Algiers features thousands of Algerian extras; director Pontecorvo’s intended effect was the “Casbah-as-chorus”, communicating with chanting, wailing, and physical effect. (wiki)
