The Battle of Algiers: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray]

I'm sure that I had heard of this film long before I ever saw it. I had definitely seen clips from it (most memorably in the brilliant BBC documentary series "The Trap" by Adam Curtis). But it wasn't until I read the book "Thinking Like a Terrorist" by former FBI special agent Mike German that I finally decided to watch it. German argues that this is the one movie you absolutely must see if you want to understand terrorism. It illustrates how terrorists operate, what their strategy is, what their objectives are, and why they do what they do. It also shows why efforts to fight terrorism often prove counterproductive, and end up playing right into the terrorists' hands. German notes that terrorist groups all around the world routinely watch this movie as part of their indoctrination and training. It is also a favorite among military, intelligence, and counterterrorism professionals, who watch it in order to better understand what they're up against. In fact, a special screening of this film was held at the Pentagon in late 2003 in order to help defense officials better prepare for dealing with the growing insurgency in Iraq. Apparently, this is the film to watch if you want to learn about terrorism. And, since I'm a political scientist with a special interest in political violence, I had to see it for myself.My verdict: It's an amazing film. It's everything German claimed it would be, and more. Much more. Not only is it the definitive cinematic case study of terrorism, it is also one of the finest pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen. It sheds light on an important historical event, and does so in a way that is both honest and evenhanded. It's the sort of movie that raises difficult ethical questions, and refuses to give easy answers. It resists the urge to paint anyone as either hero or villain. It allows us to feel sympathy for both sides in the conflict without ever excusing either side's brutality. Besides that, it's simply a really well-made film. Director Gillo Pontecorvo did an excellent job. Shot on location in Algiers just a few years after the events portrayed in the movie, it has an authentic look and feel to it that you just couldn't replicate on a Hollywood set. The scenes shot in the claustrophobic streets of the Casbah -- the old city of Algiers, where the Muslims lived, segregated from the Europeans in the more modern parts of the city -- are particularly spectacular. Many of the people you see on screen are not professional actors, but are Algerian locals recruited by the director to appear in the film. In a few cases, the actual people who were involved in the Algerian War portray themselves in the movie. The story is engaging from start to finish; and the acting and direction are superb."The Battle of Algiers" ("La Bataille d'Alger") is, as the title suggests, the cinematic retelling of the story of a key phase of the Algerian War (1954-1962). This movie is not a documentary. Rather, it's a scripted drama based on a slightly fictionalized version of the actual events. The movie gives a somewhat simplified account of what happened, and uses composite characters in some places. But it still manages to capture the essence of the story of how Algeria won its independence from France.Algeria had been ruled by France since 1830, and had been considered an integral part of the French state since 1848. Since that time, it had acquired a large population of settlers from Europe, and their descendents -- known locally as "pieds-noirs" -- who lived mainly in the coastal cities such as Algiers, and who enjoyed all of the rights and privileges of French citizens. Unfortunately, the indigenous Muslims of Algeria did not enjoy these same rights and privileges, and were forced to endure treatment similar to that of blacks in the American South under Jim Crow. This led to a great deal of resentment, and to growing demands by Algerian Muslims for equal rights. When those demands were ignored by the French, a number of native Algerians decided that it was time to reclaim their homeland and seek independence from France. In the mid-1950s, these disaffected Algerian Muslims formed the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) -- i.e. the National Liberation Front -- and launched a campaign designed to get the French out of Algeria once and for all. The FLN was very well-organized, and followed a very well-thought-out strategy for achieving their objectives. They made effective use of propaganda both to attract support to their cause and to justify their actions to the world. They also made very effective use of violence -- from the assassination of police officers on the streets of Algiers, to coordinated terrorist bombings throughout the European sections of the city, targeting civilian pieds-noirs. It wasn't a mindless campaign of random violence. Rather, it was strategically targeted violence, carefully orchestrated to provoke a very specific reaction. And it worked. The FLN got the exact reaction it was hoping for: a violent and oppressive crackdown by the French authorities that only served to further alienate the Muslim population, making it easier for the FLN to recruit more and more Algerians to its cause. Eventually, pretty much the entire indigenous Algerian population was in open revolt; and it became too costly for the French to continue trying to maintain order. The French people were also losing confidence in their government's ability to deal with the Algerian situation. In the end, France had little choice but to cut their losses and grant full independence to Algeria in 1962. The terrorists had won.Shortly after independence, the newly formed Algerian government commissioned Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo to make a movie about the war so the entire world, and future generations, would know what happened. They didn't want a propaganda film that would whitewash history, falsely portraying the war as a morally-unambiguous clash between noble heroes who could do no wrong and dastardly villains who deserved no sympathy. Instead, they wanted an honest portrait of what had happened -- one that was fair to both sides, and yet pulled no punches when it came to showing the atrocities that both sides committed during the conflict. And that's exactly what Pontecorvo put on film. When this movie was released in 1966 -- just four years after the end of the Algerian War -- it shocked the world. It was extremely controversial, especially in France, where it was banned for several years because its portrayal of the Algerian Muslims and the FLN was considered too sympathetic. But the film won widespread critical acclaim; and it is still regarded by film critics today as one of the best movies ever made. I'm inclined to agree.If you want to learn about terrorism, if you want to learn about the Algerian War, or if you just want to watch a great movie, I highly recommend "The Battle of Algiers".So, here are the relevant technical details: The film is black & white, and has a running time of two hours. The dialogue is in French and Arabic, with English subtitles. This particular DVD set has tons of bonus materials, including a documentary about the life and career of director Gillo Pontecorvo, a documentary about the making of the film, a series of interviews with five famous filmmakers about why this is such a great movie, a documentary about the Algerian revolution, interviews with French military officers who fought in Algeria about the torture and execution of captured FLN terrorists, a discussion between two former top U.S. counterterrorism officials about what this film has to teach us about terrorism and how to fight it, and a documentary about Gillo Pontecorvo's return to Algiers in the early 1990s to see how the Algerian people have fared since winning their independence. All of these bonus materials are worth watching; but, from my own perspective, the discussion about terrorism and counterterrorism -- featuring Richard A. Clarke, formerly of the National Security Council, and Michael A. Sheehan, formerly of the State Department -- is especially valuable. Because of these bonus materials, I would recommend this particular DVD set over any other version of the film you may find.

Filmed with many of the actual participants in the sixties when the old values came crashing down as the students rushed to the barricades and revolution was sexy, Battle of Algiers, while still undeniably great film-making, has become a very different film since the decade of rebellion. Indeed, it seems to become a different film every decade: not only have people's revolutions such as Iran resulted in repressive fundamentalist dictatorships where human rights are ignored and rape victims are executed alongside their rapists, but once again foreign troops occupy Arab countries imposing their idea of civilisation on an unwilling population. As a result, the film takes on a very different perspective almost every time you see it, challenging your preconceptions each time.Dedicated to the people of Algiers, it is more an account of the rise and fall of the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN) between 1954-7 than the popular resistance to the French occupation, following their strategies and the response of the increasingly militarised French. The country's genuine revolution and liberation in 1962 is dealt with almost as an afterthought in the film's epilogue.With the visual authenticity of a newsreel, the lean construction of a documentary and a gripping immediacy to many of its scenes, the film is fairly even handed in its treatment of the outrages on both sides, but never allows either side to justify or even explain itself. Only in the UN's habitual cowardice in refusing to take a stand on the issue is the reason for the escalation in violence, rather than the ideology that drives it, made apparent.Certainly, for all the rightness of their cause, the FLN's methods are, by necessity, so brutal and dictatorial that automatic sympathy for them is out of the question. They rule by fear, clearing (translation: driving out or murdering) the Casbah of prostitutes, junkies and crooks not for any moral reason but to ensure a safe hideout. The petty criminal turned freedom fighter 'hero' machine-guns the man who raised him because he will not help the party; a woman leaves a bomb in a milk bar with children in it without a trace of conscience or remorse; passers-by are machine-gunned from a speeding ambulance. So lacking in pity or simple human decency are they and so callous is their disregard for human life that it is almost impossible not to hold them in contempt while still supporting the principle their fight for freedom - this is a film that doesn't romanticise the moral price at which that freedom is bought. Nor, more surprisingly still, does it demonise the French (many themselves veterans of the French resistance to occupation of their own country during WW2) and their response. It's almost as if the film is challenging you to hate its heroes and sympathise with its villains while at times lucidly explaining why both sides are driven to such desperate measures. It's something a filmmaker as relentlessly partisan as Ken Loach would never have the guts to attempt or the skill to pull off.Certainly it is one of the ironies of time and hindsight that whereas in 1965 the French were so obviously the undisputed villains of the piece that the film was banned in France, now their actions seem, if not morally justifiable, at least understandable. Fighting an unseen enemy hiding behind the civilian population, with each member knowing only three others in the organisation, the French cannot find them because even they do not know who or where they are. Afraid of another Dien Bien Phu and faced with a lack of political will by their government, you understand why the French paratroops resort to torture as their only means of gaining information in the face of increasing outrages aimed indiscriminately at the civilian population. It's all part of a desperately escalating series of immoral outrages on both sides, with the occupiers never understanding why it's their atrocities that draw more public outrage than those they're fighting against - at one point, the French Colonel is moved to wonder "Why are the Sartres always on the other side?" on learning of the popular support for the FLN among the left-wing intellectuals, a sentiment that still holds true of the military and political mindset that looks upon rebellion and terrorism as a purely logistical and tactical problem today. The film was screened at the Pentagon in 2003 and it's clear that they saw nothing in it but tactics.This pragmatic loss of ordinary standards of decency is inherent in the film: even though Pontecorvo shows the reasons for the atrocities on both sides, that doesn't undermine the savagery of the acts themselves. Interestingly, the film's trailer adds voice-over from many of the participants explaining their motivations more clearly than the film itself, but in many ways the film really reflects the point of co-producer and real life senior FLN figure Yacef Saadi's original book - not a handbook or a celebration so much as a explanation of just why pity had to quickly fall by the wayside on both sides. The success of the film is that it doesn't feel the need to mitigate any of its protagonists actions with comforting emotional outlets or devices to add sympathy and point the audience, whether it's the girl in the milkbar or the French colonel who can publicly admire one of the rebels at a press conference before (by implication) arranging his suicide in his cells because he recognises he's still a danger even in captivity. It's a rare unflinching portrait of revolution in all its ugliness and moral vacuity (rather than ambiguity) where the object becomes all-consuming and all-destroying on both sides. Yacef Saadi's final small victory isn't military - it was the people themselves who won their freedom rather than their self-proclaimed champions - it's that he finally sees beyond the kind of empty nihilistic gestures that leads others to pointlessly martyr themselves. It's a human reaction and one that puts life - even if it is only his own - and the hope for change that life still carries first, yet Pontecorvo never overstates it.It's not a film that gives easy answers or clear cut heroes and villains, and Criterion's superlative 3-disc NTSC DVD set more than amply addresses the moral contradictions in a truly impressive array of supplements that look at the film in a post-9/11 light. You can hardly move for documentaries both on the film itself and its influence - Gillo Pontecorvo - The Dictatorship of Truth, Marxist Poetry - The Making of The Battle of Algiers and Five Directors - and the history and aftermath of the revolution - Remembering History, The Battle of Algiers - A Case Study and Gillo Pontecorvo's Return to Algiers - as well as a 28-minute extract from documentary Etats d'Armes in which French soldiers talk about the use of torture in the war. Throw in a couple of trailers, a 54-page booklet and an excellent transfer and it's one of the finest releases Criterion ever put out.