"Terrorism is useful as a start. But then, the people themselves must act."

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2010)

Battle of Algiers, a film by Gillo Pontecorvo (who is interestingly an Italian director, not Algerian), was originally a controversial film when first released in America due to the negative connections people would draw to Vietnam. What's really amusing is the fact that years afterward, President Bush actually held a screening of this movie in the Pentagon. Bush completely distorted the message of this film and saw it as some sort of manual as to how to defeat the terrorists (oh boy...) I really admired the visual storytelling element of the film, which had a very documentary style to it. All the "war" scenes looks like actual footages. I also really liked how Pontecorvo set up the character of Ali La Pointe. The first scene we get of him is this guy running away from the police. He trips on the foot of a wisecrack French guy and Ali has a choice, to keep running to avoid getting caught by the police or to teach the French guy a lesson. Ali punches the French guy in the face. There's no dialogue, no long introduction, just a simple scene and right away we know what kind of guy Ali is. Another interesting point I realized while watching the film was that usually in film where a group of people are conquered by another, the conquered group is usually somehow culturally/socially converted and integrated into society but the Algerians were completely segregated. There wasn't even an attempt to "moralize" the "savages." I think that's why we get the term of the kasbahs.