Battle still rages with power.

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2011)

Four decades after its release The Battle of Algiers remains as emotionally powerful and timely as ever. Its semi documentary look and universal theme addressing a people's right to run their own country and not some foreign colonizer or more pertinent to today's front page, despotic dictator, has not lost an ounce of its urgency or punch as the same part of the world including Algeria itself wrestles with self determination.
Street thief Ali Lapointe is doing time in an Algerian jail when he gets religion after witnessing the execution of an independence fighter. On the outside he attempts to enlist with the FLN but is first tested to measure the depth of his commitment. Passing that he becomes part of a cell that encourages strikes against the French oppressor but when this fails the cell turns to violence. Career officer Colonel Mathieu is given command to subdue the rebelling Arabs and he does so by imposing greater restrictions and resorting to torture of Casbah residents and suspects.
Director Giullio Pontecervo's cold sober story telling rhythmically carried along by Ennio Morricone's score and cinematographer Marcello Gatti's lensing of the vertical Casbah battle field in all its restrictive claustrophobia makes for an ideal stage to depict an oppressed people brought to the edge with nowhere to turn. While Pontecervo shows both sides resorting to atrocity he clearly sympathizes with the Arab cause and takes every opportunity to make French paratroopers look like Nazi Africa Corps and act like Gestapo. Conversely he does not glamorize (or infect the film with a movie star ) the cold dispatch of Ali and his compatriots instead leaving it up to the immoral situation to make its case.
Mirroring the Viet Nam conflict during its release and used as a training film by terrorists around the globe since then The Battle of Algiers remains a provocative and absorbing watch that should continue to resonate not only as a call to arms but as an example of cinema at its most powerful.