Algerian Independence Strugggle

Rating: 8/10 (18 November 2006)

The Battle of Algiers is about Algeria's brutal war of independence with France and it's more one-sided history lesson than entertainment. Gillo Pontecorvo's film was released in 1966 and provides a documentary-style portrait of events. The Algerian insurgents, the National Liberation Front ("FLN") are presented as heroic freedom fighters while the French are nasty and ridiculous.
In 1954 the FLN begins a guerrilla war with the unsuspecting French authorities. The French retaliate and there is a curfew, searches, road-blocks and torture. The French try to break the resistance movement and ordinary Arabs are attacked in the street. The FLN then kill French civilians by planting bombs in bars and cafés. The film shows that ratcheting up the violence just begets more extreme violence from the other side.
Many European countries faced similar conflicts as they were forced to abandon their colonies after World War II. As a Brit I'm familiar with the narrative of an unpopular foreign power deciding how much violence to use to put down an insurgency. The UK usually decided that it was better to get out than engage in a guerrilla war with a hostile local population. The movie gives the impression that the French had some difficulty in accepting that the world had moved on and their time as a colonial power was up. Ironically, Jacques Chirac, the French president who opposed the Iraq war, served as an officer in the conflict and was wounded in action.
The film's sympathies are clearly with the FLN and the film's happy ending is independence in 1962. However since independence Algeria has often been violent and unstable. By 1976 the FLN had turned the country into a virtual one-party state and banned dissent. When elections resumed in 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front were the winners. This was unacceptable to the military and in 1992 a 10-year civil war began, with 160,000 deaths.
Overall the film is disappointing as entertainment and the level of brutality involved makes it a depressing story. You would also be better served buying a book on the recent history of Algeria to get a more balanced understanding of the country's conflicts.