A movie that rings true even 40 years later

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2007)

When my film professor showed us this movie in class he mentioned that it was also shown at the Pentagon when the war in Iraq started. The military wanted a way to make its generals understand the actions the people they were going to fight were taking. While it might still be hard to understand why people would resort to terrorist actions, this movie does prove to be a very useful tool in getting people to realize what can drive people to consider going down that road.
The movie tells the story of Algeria's road to independence from France in the early 1960's and was filmed in a documentary style, making it hard to remember sometimes that the image we see on the screen is only a reenactment of actual events. In fact, some of the main people who actively participated in the revolution acted in this movie, reliving events from their past.
I grew up in a country that experienced terror attacks like the ones that are shown in the movie on an almost regular basis. Seeing scenes like the bombing of the discotheque or the bar hit a little too close to home for me, bringing up memories of similar images from popular hangouts in my home town. But it also made me see the other side of those attacks, the side that I never saw in those images from my childhood. I can't say that I condone the use of violence or the killing of innocent people, but watching the movie and what the people of Algiers went through that made them choose that path, made me understand the other side of terror a little better.
The documentary style of this movie doesn't show one side or another as the right one. It gives you the facts of what happened, and how it ended. And this is the greatness of this movie. It doesn't take sides, it just lets you see things for how they were, and lets you decide which one you want to identify with.