The Movie About Terrorism and Torture that Keeps on Giving: The Battle of Algiers

Warning: gesamtkunspost ahead. Extremely long, bear with me.

The Battle of Algiers (1966, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo) is a protagonist-hopping romp through contested Algerian alleyways - automatic pistol in hand.

It's also one of the best movies I've ever seen.

The film has been shown in Argentina at the Navy Mechanics School, it is Andreas Baader's favorite movie, and The Pentagon hosted a screening in 2003 to address concerns about fighting in Iraq. Its relevance grows unstoppably over time.

The happenings: The first hour is taken up by individual scenes of Algerians sneaking past French barriers to assassinate guards and plant explosives. As soon as the violence becomes unmanageable, the camera centers in on the French army colonel and his plan to identify and kill the terrorist organizers. Shots alternate between French interrogations and Algerian resistance until the final climax.

Colonel Mathieu tells his men to treat the conflict as policing, not traditional warfare. He draws arrows on a chalk board connecting terrorists and explains how their organizational structure is pyramidal yet difficult to traverse. "It is a war of intelligence." Aside from this being spot-on accurate, and completely prophetic, it has the added of effect of combining a typical war movie with cop movies that call to mind Jean-Pierre Melville, Gene Hackman, and even American Gangster. And just as Melville took noir and injected it with patience, philosophy and honor, The Battle of Algiers does the same for an entirely unique hybrid of: documentary, war movie, cop movie, noir, and independent street-thriller.

From a filmmaking perspective alone the movie is excellent. The twisting alleys of the Muslim Quarter are vibrant and enigmatic. The insides of homes are barren sanctuaries - ravaged by outside forces and maintained by brute necessity. There is humanity in every face and history in every landscape.

The style shows incredible influence in the films of the 70's and again around the turn of the century. But its importance to film still looks minimal compared to the visionary remarks on torture, terrorism, insurgency and the politics that weave throughout.

The exchanges between Colonel Mathieu and journalists are fascinating:

Colonel Mathieu: The word "torture" doesn't appear in our orders. We've always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies. As for the NLF, they request that their members, in the event of capture, should maintain silence for twenty-four hours, and then they may talk. So, the organization has already had the time it needs to render any information useless. What type of interrogation should we choose, the one the courts use for a murder case, that drags on for months?

Journalist: The law's often inconvenient, Colonel.

Colonel Mathieu: And those who explode bombs in public places, do they respect the law?

The argument here would be that the State needs to maintain the higher moral ground. But the dialogue itself addresses the issue fearlessly and with real poetic objectivity.

"Evenhanded" is the word. The actions of both sides are ruthless and deplorable while every individual person is painfully sympathetic. By the end, all actions seem justified in some way or another. Most movies that are "unbiased" do so by never delving deeply into any of the issues. It's easy to sit on the sidelines when you refuse to play. It's nearly impossible to jump onto the field without swaying the momentum of the game. This movie does just that.

Netflix rating: 5 stars
RIYL: The Red and the White, City of God, Army of Shadows
Youtube: trailer

P.S. I went a little trigger happy with the screenshots.