Altruism or Theft?

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2010)

The film is brilliant, in telling the story of a culture; the Algerian culture that has been forcefully lost amidst the French colonization Italian director Pontecorvo shows the strength of unity within a culture. The loss of ones own cultural identity is something I have trouble relating to as I am an American born citizen. However, the film spoke numbers to audience members of the time in relation to what COULD be the possible outcome of the happenings in Vietnam and what eventually transpired. I respected Pontecorvo's efforts in remaining neutral to the French and Algerian side in his film making process. However, as an audience member I felt compassion for the Algiers alone. The altruistic "behavior" of the French were seen as a facade in my eyes. The French overtook Algeria as their own 130 years prior to the story in the film of the Algiers rebellion. They pushed the Algiers into a ghetto where they were surveyed and treated with diminishing respect. Shooting in natural locations and with non-actors made my experience of watching this film a memorable one. When drinking alcohol was prohibited in the country, there is a scene where an old man is taunted by the little children, they chorus "wino" and attack him. I felt remorse for the old man, and in the scheme of things his tiny flaw of alcoholism in the eyes of the colonized government was illustrated to me as the beginnings of a dictatorship. A ruling in which a man may not choose his drink or where he treads. The film resonates to cultures all around the world in its message of the examination of a repressed culture that rebels. Pontecorvo does not justify the actions of the Algiers or the French, but rather, he allows the viewer to come to their own conclusion on what is truly altruistic. Consistently throughout the film my conscience chorused "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."