The French film, Mon Colonel, is ostensibly about the Algerian war for independence from France in the 1950s, but it has obvious, and apparently intentional, relevance to present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film is presented as a murder mystery: a color, present-day story concerning the murder of a retired colonel, wrapped around a black-and-white version of the events, years ago in Algeria, that motivated his killer. The story is gradually revealed in excerpts from a diary that are delivered to the police and the military. The diary is that of a young law student who volunteers for the army in Algeria and is assigned to assist the colonel in charge of a large town there.
The framing device is a bit clumsy, but it does serve to bring the story into the present, the better for us to consider its implications. This is not done in too obvious a way: Iraq and Afghanistan are never mentioned. But we certainly get the point. We'd probably suspect something like this anyway, from the fact that the script is by Costa-Gavras, long a politically-engaged director with a leftist viewpoint, who is probably most famous for his film Z (1969), about the military junta in Greece.
In particular, the Colonel has definite ideas on the uses of torture. It is to be used to extract information that could save the lives of French citizens or defeat the insurgents. It is not to be covered up, or called something else: the Colonel scandalizes visiting French dignitaries by telling them exactly how the "pacification" of his town has been achieved. And very importantly, one must dislike torture, and must not enjoy inflicting it on people. It is to be used only for serious purpose, and not to humiliate people unnecessarily. It is to be used in the service of "justice", if not necessarily "legality."
The Colonel's young protégé is a law student. First he is assigned to finding a legal justification for the Colonel's methods. Because of emergency laws that have been enacted, he succeeds in preparing a plausible case. Pleased with his work, the Colonel then puts him in charge of the torture. The young man has great difficulty with this assignment. Eventually he refuses to carry out his orders, and disappears under mysterious circumstances.
The background for the situation is carefully shown. The French have been in Algeria for 125 years and consider it part of France. Many Algerian Arabs consider themselves to be French and some have fought for France. On the other hand France resists giving them the vote, fearing, as one senator remarks, that the parliament in Paris would be "turned into a bazaar." The towns all have signs on their outskirts proclaiming that they are French, but most of the countryside belongs to the insurgents. There is a great scene where almost the entire French (i.e. non-Arab) population of a town is driven out to the countryside, with visiting dignitaries from France, for a picnic. When the young student asks his Colonel whether this is safe, he is told that the area has been scoured for rebels for weeks, and the whole area is full of soldiers. There is even a tame Arab chieftain making a show of welcome. Obviously this is not the sort of outing the townspeople would undertake on their own.
There is no doubt that the filmmakers are opposed to the Colonel and all he stands for. Even so, they give him plenty of opportunity to explain himself and try to justify his actions. The rebels are committing terror attacks against civilians, the supposedly loyal Arabs are paying off the rebels, there are spies in their midst (a friend of the young officer turns out to be one of them.) And the techniques of the Colonel, including torture and summary executions, seem to be working --- the town is "pacified." As the Colonel points out, in an insurgency, whichever side is supported by the people will win. (The Colonel is not naive in the matter of guerrilla war, he even has quotes from Mao posted on his walls to remind him how the insurgents think.) The Colonel's job is to make sure the people support him, through fear if necessary, and, temporarily at least, he succeeds.
Of course we are intended to relate this film to current events in the Mideast, Abu Graib and so on. But I found it more interesting on two other levels, one, the historical, and two, as a more abstract meditation on human conduct. It made me realize that in spite of seeing the film Battle of Algiers many years ago, and reading Camus in college (his name turns up in the film, the Colonel thinks he's a traitor), I know very little of the history of the French in Algeria. I should learn more. As for the more abstract arguments, they hang in the air. What do you do about terrorism, if not to fight it by any means necessary? We know what the French did: eventually, they left. They could do that because Algeria, whatever they claimed, was never really part of France. Questions hang in the air, like an argument that has only begun.
It's a good movie, believable, thought-provoking. It probably opens some old wounds in France, which would mostly, it seems, like to forget about Algeria. There is nothing minimalist about this film. It is full of the sense that thoughts, motives, actions matter, that we are responsible for our actions and had better consider them carefully. Definitely worth seeing.
4 out of 5 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
