a perfect docudrama with no equals

Rating: 10/10 (13 September 2005)

It would be a mistake to think that what you see in Battle of Algiers is an unbiased account of Algerian history, and it would probably be an even bigger mistake to use the events of this film as your sole guide for understanding, say, the US occupation of Iraq. That said, I think this is one of the best films ever made about the nature of war--why people fight, and what they become by fighting.
The main topic of the film is nationalism, and the Algerian struggle to become a nation is its plot. The people of Algeria are the protagonists and Pontecorvo doesn't really conceal his sympathy for them. Nor should he, when you consider the history of oppression, exploitation and broken promises that characterized French rule.
But even though the Algerians are the protagonists, they are not exactly the good guys. We are shown the deliberate and determined way in which they target civilians through acts of terrorism, and the way that they turn against their fellow Algerians when they won't join the struggle (or won't dress or act the way they are told to).
Ultimately there are no good guys per se, and Pontecorvo is careful to show the brutality and the suffering of both sides of the conflict. Some of the French participants are portrayed as cardboard villains, but there are some subtler figures as well, particularly the French colonel who remarks that he dislikes Sartre, but "likes him even less as an enemy."
The subjects being shot are all non-professional actors (with one exception) and frequently they are acting out a second time what they actually did in real life some few years earlier. Their simple presence on screen is powerful, and Potecorvo's way of seeing them combines grainy, documentary realism with astounding moments of visual poetry. There are shots in this film that have a magic Bresson would envy.
The main gift this film gives to Western viewers is an opportunity to see struggling (and non-white, non-Western) nations as the heroes of their own story, rather than as bit players in a story about the triumph of the US and Europe. This point of view will be an invaluable one in the decades to come; we'll need it to make new allies, as well as to defend against new enemies. Battle of Algiers reminds us that the desire to create one's own destiny (or the destiny of one's nation) is a human quality and not an American one.
If you couldn't care less about the politics, you can take Battle of Algiers as a complex portrait of human nature in the modern era: courageous and noble, but also brutal and ruthless. Or, if that's still too highbrow for you, just watch it as an exciting and realistic war movie that makes Saving Private Ryan look Hollywood fake by comparison.