In a world where regular people are grounded down by a machinery beyond their understanding or control, anonymity is key. The realistic cast, in the sense of everyday man, laid the groundwork for one of the greatest cinematic pieces in film history, Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 The Battle of Algiers. The director wanted to acknowledge the uprising that had prevailed after pushing the French from Algeria in July 1962. That event triggered a wave of movements across the Third World, which served as a portrait of freedom and as a lesson by ruling violent means necessary to win. The Battle of Algiers helped to unify such struggles by uniting the revolutionary idealists. Pontecorvo’s work therefore can be recognized as an apogee of cinema which ultimately paved a foundation in the war for social change.
Pontecorvo laid the foundation with extreme detail by traveling to Algiers to interview witnesses. The Algerians issued a political campaign in response to a social experience of injustice. With policies deemed excessively strong-armed, there was the obvious tradition of neorealism. The repeated shots of individuals mourning and the Muslim women’s cries heard throughout created a tide of unstoppable hatred.
The narrative captures the treacherous tactics such as police shootings and terrorist bombings. In this sense, it’s the French who appear remote, dead, unfazed, and unified in their police uniforms. Aside from Colonel Mathieu, they’re denied personality and given zero close-ups. The Algerians however are given families, personality, and faces. In doing so, the French are shown as just doing their jobs, while the lives of the Algerians are swept away hidden from sight.
Such is seen in the unforgettable sequence where a group of Algerian women plant bombs at various locations in the French quarter. In another context, they would be evil beings looked down upon for such cruel acts. However, we have been made to rationalize with their perspective realizing that innocent people are about to be slaughtered. In this moment, the French settlers are given actual personalities with vivid snapshots of teens dancing, men drinking, and idly chatter throughout. By agreeing with the treacherous acts of the Algerian women who we’ve come to terms with, Pontecorvo has penetrated our western ideology. Therefore, The Battle of Algiers offers a vivid image of how the boomerang effect can be applied on both sides of the spectrum even when one class is deemed evil.
Geoffery StJulien 