“National liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event.” – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
★★★★½ – A longtime classic war film from the 1960s depicting the Algerian armed struggle against the French colonial forces in the country. It opens with an Algerian militant giving in after an extended period of torture by the French authorities, and disclosing the hideout of Ali la Pointe, a petty criminal turned member of the FLN, the Algerian resistance movement. As the soldiers rush to his hideout, they circle it and demand his surrender. The film flashes back to the events preceding this moment. Namely the 1957 Battle of Algiers, which involved guerilla warfare, such as several bombings of the European Quarter (Arabs lived in the Casbah) and the killing of several police officers, alongside a seven-day strike, which was met with mass repression on the final day. As the attacks grow in number, the French see themselves having to bring in Colonel Philippe Mathieu to put down the insurrection in the city. Although the French military exploited the structure of the FLN to their advantage in order to crush the revolt, in which Ali dies after his hideout is blown up, the film shows that the French may have won the Battle of Algiers, but they have not won the Algerian War; it then proceeds to discuss the following protests and riots leading up to the country’s independence in 1962. Overall, a consistently entertaining account of the war explored from the side of the resistance that will want to make you grip at the edge of your seat asking for more.
