One of the crowning achievements of cinema

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2006)

The Battle of Algiers is one of the greatest pieces of cinematic history. Unarguably the leader of its genre - war/politics - each frame of this masterpiece is cinemagic.
Based on Saadi Yacef's biased memoirs, but done in a much more neutral manner by Italian communist filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, this has a marked Neorealistic influence stamped on it. From the opening frame when an Algerian is tortured into revealing the whereabouts of Ali La Pointe and the movement of the paramilitary into the casbah to nab/kill the FLN leader, you'll know this is the real McCoy. There gritty realism, the amazing crowd scenes, the hustle-bustle, squalor and beauty of the Casbah weave a cinematic magic.
The bulk of the action takes place during the eventful year of 1957 in what started out as a gentlemen's war but eventually degenerated into all out civilian bombings when the French played dirty by planting a bomb in the casbah. The FLN retaliation is swift and brilliantly executed - disturbing though it is. The tactics used by the FLN and French Army as shown in this film have been studied for years by various terrorist organizations (especially the PLO) and by governments (including the Pentagon).
There are so many wonderful moments in this film that you get sucked into another world, another time from the word Go! It is wonderfully watchable and intelligent at the same time. The dialogue is superb too - especially Ben MHidi's "Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets." In real life, the vastly experienced Ben MHidi - an elder of the movement - was in his early 30's when he "committed suicide" so that gives you an idea of the youth of the FLN support base.
Unmissable!!!