Great movie

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2009)

I really enjoyed this movie. I would consider it equal with Spielberg's Schlinder's List. The reason why I compare these two films is they are able to take a large conflict and scale it down to size and give faces the the good and the evil. The film follows the resistance of the Algerian people with the French government who has been in power for over 130 years. The basic theme of the movie, (What I took away from it) is eggs must be broken to make an omelet and a whole lot of more eggs need to be broken to win independence from the French. ALI is one of the rebel fighters who joins an organized coalition to kill as many French civilians and ranking French officials. The brains of the rebellion Djafar organizes the killings of many French citizens. Col. Mathieu is part of the French military battling to keep peace among the conquered country. After the Algerian hit squads begin killing French police, innocent Algerians are targeted for the retaliation. After the French civilians retaliate, the Algerians dress their women to look like French women to plant bombs in densely populated clubs and bars. In response to that, the French civilians plant a bomb in a crowded ghetto, destroying houses and many many people. So its a very vicious back and forth with people. After watching the movie for almost two hours I began to get desensitized to the value of life and everyone getting brutally murdered. I don't know if that was the director's plan, but I was definitely feeling psychological strain. Why I think this movie is better than Schlinder's List is the fact we get to see all of the repercussions to every action. Everything that was destroyed had a equivalent disaster that built into a massive chain of events. Schlinder's list is really focused on Oskar Schlinder for the most part. Knowing nothing prior to France's occupation over Algeria, it was a nice history lesson that I would not stumble across unless I took film 7 at Santa Monica with Prof. Carrosco. I recommend him to anyone who enjoys movies and wants to expand their understanding of film as an art-form. Back to the review. In the end, ALI dies and Djafar turns himself in to save his own life. The only criticism I have for great movies that are epic is size is the amount of energy one must invest to get through the movie. Generally I like movies to metaphorically rock my world for the two hours that my eyes are open, but it feels like Godfather long and not more violent in my opinion. Take my advice, watch the movie expecting to see people die and many times.