by Allan Fish
(Italy/France/Algeria 1965 121m) DVD1/2
Aka. Maarakat Alger/La Battaglia di Algeri
You don’t win battles with outrages
p Antonio Musu, Yacef Saadi d Gillo Pontecorvo w Franco Solinas ph Marcello Gatti ed Mario Serandrei, Mario Morra m Ennio Morricone, Gillo Pontecorvo
Brahim Hagiag (Ali la Pointe), Jean Martin (Colonel Mathieu), Yacef Saadi (Kader), Tomasso Neri (Captain Dubois), Fawzia el Kader (Halima), Michele Kerbash (Fathia), Mohamed Ben Kassen (Little Omar),
Among the fearsome mountain range that is political cinema, there is one peak that stands tall above all others. For sure, such classics as The Manchurian Candidate, Memories of Underdevelopment, Z, and any one of a handful of Andrzej Wajda films have their merits as peaks, but the zenith of this artform within an artform came in 1965 with Gillo Pontecorvo’s still seminal masterpiece. The Battle of Algiers is a political film unlike any dreamt of by Hollywood, and is all the better for it.
Pontecorvo’s film begins in 1957, with a captured Algerian resistance member forced to give up the hiding place of the last of the leaders of the National Liberation Front of Algeria (FLN). Paratroopers storm the hideout and threaten the leader, Ali la Pointe, with death for both him and his family trapped with him unless he surrenders. At which point we go back three years to 1954 and the first signs of rebellion in Algiers and follow the leaders of both the colonialists and revolutionaries, up until that fateful moment when the last member of the FLN is wiped out. Almost as an afterthought, we are shown the final uprisings of 1960 that finally lead to the declaration of their independence in 1962.
Though taking some of its inspiration from Wajda’s Generation trilogy and, particularly, Rossellini’s Open City, Pontecorvo’s film leaves behind a very different aftertaste, mixing documentary realism with a non-judgemental view of proceedings. Of course it’s easy to see that the director’s sympathies lie with the revolutionaries, but they are not shown as martyrs, nor are French colonialists shown as despots in the style so loved by the one dimensional film-makers and writers in Hollywood. He shows that each side believed in the justice of their cause and the inherent prejudice of their enemies’ cause. The revolutionaries are not deified at all, as we are shown atrocities committed by them (random shootings from a hijacked ambulance and the bombing of the grandstand of a local trotting track) to rival anything perpetrated by the French.
Much has been made of the documentary feel of the film, and certainly that is helped by the editing style, which perfectly compliments the urgency of Morricone’s iconic score (one of his very best, and most overlooked) and Pontecorvo’s unwavering directorial vision. Not forgetting the deliberately grainy photography, the aptness of which adds to the feel of authenticity that sharp clear images would have falsified. Such a visual style brings its own beauty; one particularly recalls the shot late on of the Kasbah at night during the 1960 uprising, when the nightmarish screech of the rebels is heard, a sort of hybrid of the Rebel Yell of Southern legend and the giant ant noises from fifties sci-fi flick Them. As for the performances, one can only be full of admiration for its almost exclusively non-professional cast (the only exception being Jean Martin, memorable as the fatalistic but duty bound Colonel, who justly cries against those who accuse the forces of fascism by mentioning that many of them fought in the Resistance against that very political ideal) and for the way in which Pontecorvo handles them. Forty years ago, upon its release, the future looked bright for its director, but after the critical disaster of the Brando film Queimada, he barely worked again. The Venice Golden Lion might have looked good on the mantelpiece, but it’s scant compensation for a career and talent unfulfilled. The best postscript one can give is that, even now, the film is a hot potato in France, and as a study of the effectiveness or otherwise of terrorism as a means to an end, it’s lost none of its relevance, but rather gained in potency.
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This is a bracing, difficult, thorny film, as befits its subject: it engages directly with the ethics of terrorism and torture, and the questions of means and ends. It’s startling how relevant this film still is today, not only in terms of France — Michael Haneke’s Caché suggests just how prominent the Algerian question remains there — but in terms of the kinds of things happening all over the world, in Chechnya or Iraq.
It’s obvious that Pontecorvo sympathizes with the Algerian revolutionaries, but curiously enough the scene that has stayed with me the longest from this film is the one where he pans around the interior of a French coffee shop moments before it is blown up, taking in the closeups of the faces of the victims-to-be. It’s a remarkable sequence, one that implicitly questions the logic and ethics of directing violent political actions against uninvolved civilians. Then, of course, there are plenty of other moments where the Algerians are allowed to explain and justify their violence, further complicating the film’s moral stance.
Allan, I recall seeing this movie many years ago when I was in college and the Vietnam War was at its peak. I was just blown away by the movie, and the memory of that experience has stayed with me all this time. It is such a persuasive, vivid, and moving film that I can see why it’s on this list. I’ve never seen anything like it and am also puzzled that Pontecorvo didn’t go on to become one of the great film artists. The movie can make one feel very uncomfortable and confused about the way he or she responds to the use of terrorism by the rebels to achieve an end that Pontecorvo makes seem so just. It’s a very thought-provoking movie that made me have strong, immediate reactions and then later question them without reaching any definite answers. It’s the kind of movie that provokes the self-examination of one’s responses, that raises questions so complex that there can never be any clear or easy answers. My strongest single memory is when what you call “the nightmarish screech of the rebels” is taken up by the crowds of women in the streets.
Well, Finchy and Ed, can only nod my head to both of you, agree with pretty much all of what you have both said.
………I found this film very frightening, perhaps because of it’s incredible sense of urgency………
Ed: You had just discussed a few days ago about the influence of the Algerian War on Parisian life in Varda’s 5 to 7, but of course that film predated the Hanecke by decades. Point is, it’s ongoing, as you intimate.
Pontecorvo employed the cinema verite style to lend his film incredible authenticity. Like R.D., I remember well when I first saw this film, (at a Manhattan festival) and I sat up close, and was spellbinded by the astonishing realism, even believing for example that a bomb placed in a garbage container near a soldier was really happening and not being re-enacted. Marcello Gatti’s cinematography makes effective use of grainy stock too.
The film has long been regarded as a model example of how to conduct a guerilla war, and purportedly the Black Panthers studied it.
Ennio Morricone’s score here is pounding and nerve-wrecking, a perfect embodiment of the mood. The counter-revolutionaty thrust of the “oppressors” – the French, is also politically fascinating.
I have this way up on my list, much higher than Allan has it here. Fantastic review, one of the man from Kendal’s best!
You can’t take your eyes off this for a second, or you are libel to miss something. One of the greatest documentary-styled films I’ve ever seen.
Yes, yes, yes. This film is a blueprint for the political films that have followed it in the decades after it’s release. Matter of fact, the visual style has been adopted by just about every director that even thinks of making a film with a political agenda. But for all the bad copy cats out there, Oliver Stone and his horrendous TALK RADIO and the even worse PLATOON immediately come to mind, you get a good one out there as well. I’m immediately thinking of both Steven Spielberg masterworks SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and his sorely forgotten MUNICH. In both of these films cinematographer Janusz Kaminski employs the gritty drained photo-realistic grain that made Marcello Gatti’s work here so extraordinary, you feel in these recent films the same sense of in-your-face reality that this classic put on display so many decades ago for the first time. I will also further that John Williams score for MUNICH captures the same franetic soul as Morricone’s does for this unforgettable classic. Influential.
Fair enough Dennis. Quite a bit of what you say there does makes sense.
That’s a very good way of putting it Bobby.
I’m responding here very late and with very self-serving motives, but I know that the fine folks here can likely answer my question. In going down my own year-by-year countdown, finding the earliest release date for each film can sometimes be trickier than expected. I’m going by the earliest premiere or release date that I find for each film, and so I’m a little curious about this movie being classified as a 1965 film. The earliest release date that I can find for it is September 1966 in Venice. Allan (or anyone, for that matter), have info concerning it actually premiering in 65? Any info would be appreciated.
An awkward one, Dave, as the IMDb lists as 1966 but every film guide and periodical has 1965 down. It is probably another case of a one off showing late 1965 and a general premiere the following year. To be honest, you could be forgiven for picking either year.
Thanks, Allan… that’s what I figured was the situation. I knew if anyone could point me in the right direction, it would be you, so I appreciate it.