No perspective

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2010)

A fairly detestable film. The people and the circumstances are unutterably paltry - guerilla thugs against army thugs at the fag end of colonialism. History is far bigger than all this. Did the Algerian people stop to consider the legitimacy of the Arab invasion centuries earlier, not even feeling a slight twinge of irony about their heroic revolution? Nobody can claim the world should retain the status quo of a particular point in time (except the hapless individuals who get trodden on). Flux and reflux of people has moved the world forward for aeons. Morality lies in the treatment meted out by the victorious forces, not necessarily in the act the occupation itself. Here we had our faces pressed too closely into the lives of individuals and their self-inflicted pain, pride and anger. And what did it earn them? The right to suffer decades more of authoritarian rule and civil war at their own hands.
Nor do women generally go bombing milk bars full of children - that reduced the 'revolution' to the level of criminal psychosis and skewed things too melodramatically, just like the pile-up in "Weekend" is hardly representative of a day out. The director was zooming in too closely and the picture was distorted simply by that.
I also felt manipulated by the documentary approach and the grainy black and white which creates a disingenuous world view. The sky is still blue, the trees still green, people are still people despite any amount of film-processing. Certainly, carnage was involved, but I was resisting the the snapshot that the film presented of the world. Mainly though, seems to me that the point of any film is to invest morality and compassion in things, not strip them away for barren effect. The effect was of filming a real cock-fight, with the director secretly relishing the sight of the animals tearing each other apart but throwing his hands up and saying 'hey, I make no judgement, it happens" I don't call that accomplished art.