THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

This was one of those 'must-see' classics I was forever putting off, mainly because I thought it might make for grim viewing.  

And yes, the subject-matter, Algeria's fight for independence from France, is no laughing matter,  but there's always something rather exhilarating about watching a film that's as good as this one.  

The Battle of Algiers turns out not to have been some massive street combat as I had imagined, but a series of terrorist attacks and reprisals over a period of 12 months in 1956-57.  

The film mainly concentrates on this period although it also contains some footage relating to before and after. 

Footage is an apt word because the director, Gillo Pontecorvo, pulls out all the stops to make us think we are watching archival material. Black-and-white photography, non-professional actors, documentary-style captions, a newsreel style, they’re all here.

The two main protagonists are Ali la Pointe (a real person) who was one of the commanders of the FLN, the main nationalist party, and Colonel Mathieu who was a fictionalised composite of several French counterinsurgency officers.

Mathieu is played by the only professional actor in the film, Jean Martin, I guess because there are a quite a few scenes of him addressing his men.  Also relevant may be that Martin had publicly objected to the French government's use of torture in the Algerian War.

La Pointe is played by an Algerian, Brahim Hadjadj, who has a haunting face and presence.

Some other major parts are played by actual members of the FLN.

Although the director's sympathies clearly (and rightly) lie with the Algerian independence movement, the film doesn't flinch from showing us terrorist atrocities committed by the FLN.  In particular there is a sequence involving three Algerian woman simultaneously leaving bombs in public places, such as a bar, which is tough to watch.

As a result Colonel Mathieu is brought in.  He knows that he needs to dismantle the terrorist network by the use of information which he can only get through torture, and again the film doesn't hold back in showing us this. 

There is an irony when Mathieu has to defend himself from charges of fascism given that he fought for the Resistance against the Nazis.

His methods are effective, leading to a dramatic climax which will be hard to forget, when La Pointe and three comrades (including a child) refuse to leave their hiding place and are therefore blown up.

Although the French seem to win the Battle of Algiers, a brief coda shows a mass uprising a couple of years later, suggesting that in the end France lost the Algerian War.  Algeria gained independence in 1962.

This is an extraordinary film and achievement.