"The Battle of Algiers" (Italian: La Battaglia di Algeri, Arabic: معركة الجزائر), is an Algerian-Italian film by Gillo Pontecorvo, released in 1966.

The story takes place essentially between 1954 and 1957 and takes as its setting, as its title indicates, the Battle of Algiers. It is a reconstruction of the real battle of Algiers in 1957, on the occasion of the uprising of the Muslim Algerian population by the FLN against the French colonial power, and the attempt by the paratrooper detachment of the French army to "pacify" the sector.

The film mainly traces the story of Ali la Pointe during "the battle of Algiers", and the fight for control of the Casbah district in Algiers, between FLN militants and French paratroopers of the 10th DP , during the Algerian War.

According to the ranking established by Sight & Sound, the British Film Institute's film magazine, The Battle of Algiers is ranked 48th on the 50 best films of all time, and 120th on Empire magazine's list of the 500 best films of all time. all the time.

Synopsis

In 1954 in Algiers, the National Liberation Front (FLN) issued its first communiqué: its goal was national independence from France, and the restoration of the Algerian state. Ali la Pointe offers bonneteau games. Spotted by the police, he flees but is attacked by a passerby, he fights back and is beaten up by the rest of the group. Caught by the police, he is arrested. Imprisoned, he watches through the window of his cell the execution of a death sentence by guillotine on a nationalist. The FLN contacted him.

Five months later, he carried out a first mission for the FLN: he shot a police officer with a pistol. The weapon, which was provided to him at the last moment, is not loaded. He runs away. Later meeting El-hadi Jaffar, an important man within the FLN, he learned that this mission was a test to see if he was an undercover police agent. Jaffar believes that the organization is not yet ready to kill a police officer...

Technical sheet

French title: The Battle of Algiers
Original titles: La Battaglia di Algeri and معركة الجزائر
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Assistant director: Ruggero Deodato and Giuliano Montaldo
Screenplay: Franco Solinas based on a book by Yacef Saadi
Music: Ennio Morricone and Gillo Pontecorvo
Musician: The solo military drummer: Pierino Munari.
Photography: Marcello Gatti
Editing: Mario Morra and Mario Serandrei
Production: Antonio Musu for Igor Film (Italy); Yacef Saadi for Casbah Film (Algeria)
Executive production: Ruggero Deodato
Distribution companies: StudioCanal
Budget: $800,000
Country of origin: Algeria, Italy
Original languages: French, Arabic, Italian and English
Format: black and white - 1.85:1 - mono - 35 mm
Genre: War, drama, historical, political
Duration: 121 minutes
CNC mention: prohibited for children under 12 years old, art house (operating visa no. 37251 issued on June 1, 1970)4
Release date: Algeria: 1966, France: 1971

Distribution

Brahim Hadjadj: Ali la Pointe
Jean Martin: Colonel Mathieu
Yacef Saadi: Djafar, the head of the Autonomous Zone of Algiers
Mohammed Beghdadi as Larbi Ben M'hidi
Mohamed Ben Kassen as Little Omar
Fouzia El Kader: Halima, one of the girls from the bomb network
Samia Kerbash: One of the girls from the bomb network
Ugo Paletti: The captain of the French paratroopers
Larbi Zekkal: An FLN fighter
Rouiched: The role of the drunkard

Design and production

The filming locations in the casbah of Algiers, urban maquis and headquarters of the headquarters of the Algerian separatists of the FLN

The film was released in 1965, three years after the end of hostilities in Algeria. Yacef Saadi, one of the military leaders of the FLN in Algiers, who knew that Gillo Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas had written a story (Paras) which took place in Italy then in Algeria and which aborted because of the fear of the producer of the OAS, proposed to the Italian communist director the idea of a film based on his experience in the ALN. Gillo Pontecorvo accepts but on condition of having carte blanche.

The film is shot with non-professionals, with the exception of Jean Martin, signatory of the Manifesto of the 121, in the role of Colonel Mathieu at the head of the French paratroopers. Ali la Pointe is played by Brahim Haggiag, an uneducated peasant discovered by Pontecorvo in a market in Algiers. Yacef Saadi plays his own role, that of FLN leader of the autonomous zone of Algiers.

This film was shot in the Casbah of Algiers, hand-held camera. Surviving fighters from the 1957 Battle of Algiers served as technical advisors. Some interior scenes , including that of the reception during which the commissioner takes leave of a hostess, was visibly produced in France. The first images were shot at the Climat de France city, 5,000 homes, built by architect Fernand Pouillon just above Bab El Oued.

The troop carriers and tanks of the French army that we can see in the film are not French but Russian, in fact, they are BTR-152 ATVs and SU-100 armored self-propelled vehicles ready by the Algerian army which obtained its supplies from the USSR.

Critical reception

The official presentation of this film at the 1966 Venice Film Festival aroused the bad mood of the French delegation who did not attend the screening of the film. Subsequently, the initial distrust transformed into vindictiveness against the jury and against those responsible for the Mostra when the French officials - Robert Bresson and François Truffaut were expected to be winners - learned that the Golden Lion was awarded to Gillo Pontecorvo and La Battle of Algiers; the film thus received the Golden Lion despite opposition from France.

For Swiss critic Freddy Buache, "passion, tinged with generally unacknowledged chauvinism, blurred judgments; the film was proclaimed partisan, caricatured and, to put it bluntly, mediocre [...]". Then he adds that we are, according to him, "in the presence of a magnificent and rigorous work which avoids with rare delicacy all the faults with complacency about it: no Manichaeism, no romantic exploitation of a theme which remains serious and lyrical throughout.

Home in France

The director and communist journalist Gillo Pontecorvo and the FLN actor-producer Yacef Saadi have provided testimony on a particularly ruthless episode of the Algerian war.

Initially banned in France, the film was broadcast temporarily in 1970 but removed from screens, under pressure from veterans' associations, far-right demonstrations, after a hate campaign and threats of bomb attacks. Several screenings were canceled after various incidents in Orléans, Laval and Lons-le-Saunier. In Saint-Étienne, the projectionist discovers a bag stuffed with explosives.

The film waited until 1971 to be released normally. On December 10, 1980, a heavy load of plastic, placed in the lobby of a cinema in Béziers which was screening The Battle of Algiers, exploded and caused significant material damage. In January 1981, in Paris, two people were injured during an attack on the Saint-Séverin cinema.

The film remained censored in France until 2004, because it was considered a propaganda film, breaking taboos on French military behavior during what were for a long time called in France mere events, and attacking to recent traumas.

This film is inspired by "R.A.S". (1973) by Yves Boisset.

Use by armies

This film was regularly shown to foreign trainees at the School of the Americas (installed first in Panama and then on American territory), as part of studies relating to revolutionary wars. The advanced realism of the staging and the screenplay meant that this film was used against purpose by certain intelligence services.

According to the newspaper Le Monde (September 8, 2003), a few months after the start of the coalition intervention in Iraq, officers of the American army staff and some civilians were invited to watch the film "The Battle of Algiers" in an auditorium at the Pentagon, in order to gain an overview of the subversive war waged by France during this period and draw a parallel with the problems encountered during the occupation of Baghdad during the Iraq War.

And on the invitation cards sent to these officers of the general staff, we can read this: "How to win the battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas?" The invitation also stated: "Children are shooting at exhausted soldiers, women are soon planting bombs in cafes and the entire common Arab population in mad fervor. The French have a plan, they have achieved a tactical success, but they suffer a strategic failure, does that ring a bell? To understand why, come to this rare screening."
According to Donald Rumsfeld who attended the screening of the film, "The Battle of Algiers is a teaching model on urban guerrilla warfare to better understand the development of the war in Iraq."

Cinema influences

The film, which was produced during the era of decolonization, inspired anti-imperialist activism, labor struggles and student movements around the world.
It was banned in several countries such as South Africa (during apartheid), Brazil, Imperial State of Iran, Mexico, Uruguay and other places, due to fear of incitement to rebellion.

For some, this film is a lasting reminder of a dream of freedom to all who struggle against forces that continue to shape-shift and seek the silencing and repression of these movements.

During the 1971 New York trial of the "Panther 21", members of the Black Liberation Army, accused of conspiring to detonate bombs in department stores, police stations and other locations across the city, the prosecutor, in an attempt to sway the jury toward a conviction, showed the film to jurors to demonstrate that they drew inspiration from it. The police, to counter their attacks, also viewed it and adapted their tactics and strategies.

The main theme composed by Ennio Morricone was used by Quentin Tarantino for his film "Inglourious Basterds" (2009).

Distinctions & Awards

Venice Film Festival 1966: Golden Lion and FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
New York Film Critics Circle for Best Foreign Language Film.
City of Venice Prize at the 1966 Venice Film Festival.
National Society of Film Critics Award in the United States.
Silver ribbons for best director, producer and photography at the National Union of Italian Cinematographic Journalists.
Golden Goblets for best director.
UN Prize, British Academy of Film and Television Arts / BAFTA 1972.
Kinema Junpo Prize 1968.
Premiere in Cannes.

Appointments

Silver Ribbons for Best Screenplay, Music and Production Design at the National Union of Italian Film Journalists.

It is the only film in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for two non-consecutive years, for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967 and for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 1969. * Film selected for the 19th edition of the Panorama of Cinemas of the Maghreb and Middle East (PCMMO) 2024.

http://ww.imdb.com/title/tt0058946