The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers Italian La battaglia di Algeri Arabic French La Bataille dAlger is a 1966 ItalianAlgerian historical war film cowritten and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and starring Jean Martin and Saadi Yacef. It is based on occurrences during the Algerian War 195462 against the French government in North Africa the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers. It was shot on location and the film score was composed by Ennio Morricone. The film, which was shot in a Rosselliniinspired newsreel stylein black and white with documentarytype editingis often associated with Italian neorealism cinema.

The Battle of Algiers reconstructs the events that occurred in the capital city of French Algeria between November 1954 and December 1957, during the Algerian War of Independence. The narrative begins with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah. Then partisan warfare between Muslims and PiedNoir in which both sides exchange acts of increasing violence leads to the introduction of French army paratroopers to hunt the National Liberation Front FLN. The paratroopers are depicted as winning the battle by neutralizing the whole of the FLN leadership through either assassination or capture. However, the film ends with a coda depicting nationalist demonstrations and riots, suggesting that although France won the Battle of Algiers, it lost the Algerian War.The tactics of the FLN guerrilla insurgency and the French counter insurgency, and the uglier incidents of the war, are depicted. Colonizer and colonized commit atrocities against civilians. The FLN commandeer the Casbah via summary execution of Algerian criminals and suspected French collaborators and use terrorism, including bombings, to harass Europeans. The security forces resort to lynch mobs and indiscriminate violence against the opposition. French paratroops are depicted as routinely using torture, intimidation, and murder. Pontecorvo and Solinas have several protagonists, based on historical war figures. The story begins and ends from the perspective of Ali la Pointe Brahim Haggiag, a petty criminal who is politically radicalized while in prison and then recruited by FLN commander Elhadi Jafar Saadi Yacef, dramatizing a character based on himself. ........

Source: Wikipedia