Superb Treatment of Difficult Material

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2017)

Superbly done in all aspects. In years of movie viewing I've never seen staged events look so realistic. I don't know how Pontecorvo and Co. managed it, but they did. I first saw the movie in a packed LA theatre in 1967. The place absolutely rocked when the FLN vowed to continue their struggle— shades of the anti-Vietnam war then shaping up. I guess the colonial French learned their lesson in Vietnam and Algeria, a lesson neo-colonial Americans are still learning. Anyway, there's not much I can add to the hundreds of reviews already in place. That is, except to say that what stayed and still stays with me are the peasant faces, etched by years of hardship. Plus, the native quarters with their claustrophobic passageways that resemble a prison more than a neighborhood. No way Hollywood can duplicate these. Thanks Mr. Pontecorvo and all the others for a world-class lesson in movie making and difficult truths.