When Gillo Pontocorvo passed away in 2006, obituaries worldwide eulogized him as the man "who directed THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS", and did so for a very good reason. Fifty-seven years later it still remains the most incendiary political film of all time. Legend has it that prior to America's invasion of Iraq in 2003, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS was privately screened at the Pentagon, supposedly as an instruction on how not to win over the hearts and minds of the people they're occupying. If that was their purpose, it certainly didn't work, because we all know how that debacle worked out.
The foundation for THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS lays with a nonfiction account of the Algerian War for Independence written by Saadi Yacef, a former resistance fighter who was released from prison in 1962 following France's relinquishment of their North African colony. Almost immediately, Algeria's self-rule government was interested in immortalizing their struggle onto celluloid. Because they had no homegrown filmmaking talent to speak of, they approached Pontocorvo in Italy to see if he wanted to direct.
During the Second World War, Pontocorvo was a Marxist member of Italy's Communist party who fought against Mussolini's Fascists. When the war was over, he drifted towards filmmaking, impressed with the neo-realist movement burgeoning in his country. The Algerian government felt that his anti-colonial beliefs, coupled with his flair for docudramas, made him a logical choice to direct THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
Pontocorvo's screenwriter worked closely with Yacef, who was enjoying a taste of celebrity outside of Algeria due to his involvement with the movie. In addition to the script, Yacef also served as a co-producer and even took on an acting role (as Jafar). Taking a page from Vittorio DeSica's BICYCLE THIEVES, Pontocorvo chose to avoid using professional actors in favor of people with no acting experience at all. That included Brahim Haggiag, who played the lead role of Ali LaPointe.
Movie watching experience has taught me that, for legal reasons, the names of real-life people whose lives are depicted are given pseudonyms. Or the protagonist is a composite character of more than one person. Therefore, I was quite surprised to learn that Ali LaPointe was, in fact, a real person. The first scene in THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS is in a room where French paratroopers have tortured a prisoner into revealing Ali's hideout. They descend into an apartment where the fugitive is hiding inside a secret room behind a false wall.
Unlike the other Allies, France never found peace in the years after the Second World War. Locked into a bitter conflict with the Viet Minh, by 1954 they were on the verge of losing Vietnam (or Indochina), which had been a colonial outpost of theirs for over a century. And now, just across the Mediterranean, the French were being challenged in Algeria by the rebels' National Liberation Front (or FLN), who were seeking the same results as the Viet Minh. What followed was a bloody eight year struggle between France and the FLN over who was going to rule Algeria.
After the opening credits, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS flashes back three years to 1954, where Ali LaPointe is a parolee whose juvenile delinquency has graduated into adult criminal activity. The Algerian capital city is awash with French nationals and expats who bask in humiliating the natives, and when Ali is mercilessly taunted by a young student, he responds by bloodying his tormentor's nose.
After serving a five month sentence for assault, Ali is approached by a boy acting as a liaison for the outlawed FLN. He's instructed to be at a specific location where an Arab woman will supply him with a revolver to shoot a patrolling French policeman. Doing as he's ordered, Ali pulls the trigger, only to discover the chamber is empty. This was a test by the FLN to test his loyalty and rule out his being an informer.
Passing the test, Ali is recruited by Jafar, a guerilla lieutenant, to help organize revolt. But before they can take on the colonials, they must first clean house among Algiers' Arab population by eliminating any potential traitors among the locals. The usual suspects include drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, and other purveyors of vice whose conduct runs contrary to Islamic code.
By June of 1956, the insurgents are ready to strike. In one day alone, several French police officers are gunned down in separate incidents. The prefect responds to the armed insurrection by setting off a bomb in the Casbah neighborhood, killing many innocent people including children. The authorities have now crossed the Rubicon by targeting civilians, so now it's all out war! The FLN retaliated by planting explosives in cafés, nightclubs, and other public venues frequented by Europeans.
Realizing that that the gloves are now off, Paris is well aware that their police are outnumbered by an outraged populace that wants the occupiers out of Algeria. The paratroopers are sent in to quell the rebellion and restore order to Algiers....even if it means creating new enemies. With the noose slowly tightening around their operations, the insurgents risk losing the battle of Algiers. But since international opinion is squarely against France, Algeria is in a good position to win the war.
Pontocorvo shot THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS in a grainy, harsh tone of black & white to create a newsreel effect. Of all the excellent moments in the movie, I thought his most arresting was when three Arab women set aside their traditional Muslim clothing, then apply lipstick and mascara, brush their hair, and don casual dress attire, all to make them appear more European. Carrying explosive devices inside their handbags, the ladies are easily able to pass through the various checkpoints and nonchalantly plant the bombs at the designated public places. The percussive tempo (by composer Ennio Morricone) which accompanies the gals create a sense of tension and dread that will come to tragic fruition.
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS earned universal acclaim upon its release, winning the Golden Bear at the Venice Film Festival. Unsurprisingly, the only nation not to sing its praises was France, who were not ready to have their wounds reopened so soon after granting independence. Particular irritated were far-right groups with ties to the OAS and other paramilitary types. Jean-Marie LePen remains a fierce critic of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which only reinforces the conviction that Pontocorvo's depiction was 100% correct.
Paradoxically provocative and neutral, the impact of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS continues to be far-reaching. The Black Panthers, the I. R. A., and P. L. O. All allegedly copied some of the guerilla tactics portrayed in the picture. Among Pontocorvo's peers in the director's chair, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Costa Gavros, and Ken Loach were huge admirers. Contemporary filmmakers Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Steven Soderbergh appear on DVD supplements to explain how much THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS influenced their various particular styles. If any potential foreign occupiers had any common sense, they'd watch this movie before embarking on some stupid Napoleonic folly.🔚
The foundation for THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS lays with a nonfiction account of the Algerian War for Independence written by Saadi Yacef, a former resistance fighter who was released from prison in 1962 following France's relinquishment of their North African colony. Almost immediately, Algeria's self-rule government was interested in immortalizing their struggle onto celluloid. Because they had no homegrown filmmaking talent to speak of, they approached Pontocorvo in Italy to see if he wanted to direct.
During the Second World War, Pontocorvo was a Marxist member of Italy's Communist party who fought against Mussolini's Fascists. When the war was over, he drifted towards filmmaking, impressed with the neo-realist movement burgeoning in his country. The Algerian government felt that his anti-colonial beliefs, coupled with his flair for docudramas, made him a logical choice to direct THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
Pontocorvo's screenwriter worked closely with Yacef, who was enjoying a taste of celebrity outside of Algeria due to his involvement with the movie. In addition to the script, Yacef also served as a co-producer and even took on an acting role (as Jafar). Taking a page from Vittorio DeSica's BICYCLE THIEVES, Pontocorvo chose to avoid using professional actors in favor of people with no acting experience at all. That included Brahim Haggiag, who played the lead role of Ali LaPointe.
Movie watching experience has taught me that, for legal reasons, the names of real-life people whose lives are depicted are given pseudonyms. Or the protagonist is a composite character of more than one person. Therefore, I was quite surprised to learn that Ali LaPointe was, in fact, a real person. The first scene in THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS is in a room where French paratroopers have tortured a prisoner into revealing Ali's hideout. They descend into an apartment where the fugitive is hiding inside a secret room behind a false wall.
Unlike the other Allies, France never found peace in the years after the Second World War. Locked into a bitter conflict with the Viet Minh, by 1954 they were on the verge of losing Vietnam (or Indochina), which had been a colonial outpost of theirs for over a century. And now, just across the Mediterranean, the French were being challenged in Algeria by the rebels' National Liberation Front (or FLN), who were seeking the same results as the Viet Minh. What followed was a bloody eight year struggle between France and the FLN over who was going to rule Algeria.
After the opening credits, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS flashes back three years to 1954, where Ali LaPointe is a parolee whose juvenile delinquency has graduated into adult criminal activity. The Algerian capital city is awash with French nationals and expats who bask in humiliating the natives, and when Ali is mercilessly taunted by a young student, he responds by bloodying his tormentor's nose.
After serving a five month sentence for assault, Ali is approached by a boy acting as a liaison for the outlawed FLN. He's instructed to be at a specific location where an Arab woman will supply him with a revolver to shoot a patrolling French policeman. Doing as he's ordered, Ali pulls the trigger, only to discover the chamber is empty. This was a test by the FLN to test his loyalty and rule out his being an informer.
Passing the test, Ali is recruited by Jafar, a guerilla lieutenant, to help organize revolt. But before they can take on the colonials, they must first clean house among Algiers' Arab population by eliminating any potential traitors among the locals. The usual suspects include drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, and other purveyors of vice whose conduct runs contrary to Islamic code.
By June of 1956, the insurgents are ready to strike. In one day alone, several French police officers are gunned down in separate incidents. The prefect responds to the armed insurrection by setting off a bomb in the Casbah neighborhood, killing many innocent people including children. The authorities have now crossed the Rubicon by targeting civilians, so now it's all out war! The FLN retaliated by planting explosives in cafés, nightclubs, and other public venues frequented by Europeans.
Realizing that that the gloves are now off, Paris is well aware that their police are outnumbered by an outraged populace that wants the occupiers out of Algeria. The paratroopers are sent in to quell the rebellion and restore order to Algiers....even if it means creating new enemies. With the noose slowly tightening around their operations, the insurgents risk losing the battle of Algiers. But since international opinion is squarely against France, Algeria is in a good position to win the war.
Pontocorvo shot THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS in a grainy, harsh tone of black & white to create a newsreel effect. Of all the excellent moments in the movie, I thought his most arresting was when three Arab women set aside their traditional Muslim clothing, then apply lipstick and mascara, brush their hair, and don casual dress attire, all to make them appear more European. Carrying explosive devices inside their handbags, the ladies are easily able to pass through the various checkpoints and nonchalantly plant the bombs at the designated public places. The percussive tempo (by composer Ennio Morricone) which accompanies the gals create a sense of tension and dread that will come to tragic fruition.
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS earned universal acclaim upon its release, winning the Golden Bear at the Venice Film Festival. Unsurprisingly, the only nation not to sing its praises was France, who were not ready to have their wounds reopened so soon after granting independence. Particular irritated were far-right groups with ties to the OAS and other paramilitary types. Jean-Marie LePen remains a fierce critic of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which only reinforces the conviction that Pontocorvo's depiction was 100% correct.
Paradoxically provocative and neutral, the impact of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS continues to be far-reaching. The Black Panthers, the I. R. A., and P. L. O. All allegedly copied some of the guerilla tactics portrayed in the picture. Among Pontocorvo's peers in the director's chair, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Costa Gavros, and Ken Loach were huge admirers. Contemporary filmmakers Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Steven Soderbergh appear on DVD supplements to explain how much THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS influenced their various particular styles. If any potential foreign occupiers had any common sense, they'd watch this movie before embarking on some stupid Napoleonic folly.🔚