Dignity brought to life

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2011)

At the same time I watched Battle of Algers I was taking a Political Science class, which was mostly related with comparative politics around the world. Coincidently, we happened to have just discussed in depth France and their past. Battle of Algers is a beautifully crafted film. I especially appreciated the fact that the director Gillo Pontecorvo was neither Algerian nor French because he really humanizes both, rather than favors one over the other. The issue of colonization has been in our history since the beginning and a film like this really opened my eyes to the broad picture. It allow me to see the difficulties of the resistance and their reasoning and the colonizers purposes. My favorite scenes would have to be when the Arab women were walking through town going to plant bombs and while they were there the camera cuts to different people that are in the locations that are about to blow up. This shows the humanity of each of those people and how they all have a story. For a minute or two I thought that possibly the women were not going to go through with their plan, but after realizing what the French had done to their people they didn't think twice. Being that I am a big De Sica fan, I was really satisfied by this film. Neo Realism is my favorite type of films; no professional actors, all on location, no sound stages, real light, and not thoroughly scripted really capture the dignity of the people. I really felt as if it was a documentary but it was all staged. This is a true film and now one of my favorites.