The Battle Of Algiers

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Film Description

Powerful, dispassionate account of the Algerian war of Independence which generated huge political and aesthetic ripples. With its gripping documentary-style realism providing a very believable immediacy, it’s a compelling indictment of colonialism. Aided by Morricone's score it's a film that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and doesn't let go. Could be 1957, could be 2003, 2004...

Film Information

DVD Extras

3 discs. DISC 1: The Battle of Algiers: New high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions; Production gallery; Theatrical and re-release trailers; New and improved English subtitle translation. DISC 2: Pontecorvo and the Film: Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth (1992): a 37-minute documentary, narrated by literary critic Edward Said; Exclusive 51-minute documentary on the making of The Battle of Algiers, featuring new interviews with the director, cinematographer, composer, editor, actors, and film historians; Five Directors (17 mins, 2004): Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone on the film's influence, style, and importance. DISC 3: The Film and its History: Remembering History (69 mins, 2004): an exclusive documentary that reconstructs the Algerian experience of the battle for independence, featuring interviews with historians and revolutionaries, including military leader Saadi Yacef; “États d’armes” (2002): a 28-minute documentary excerpt featuring senior French military officers recalling the use of torture and execution to combat the rebellion; The Battle of Algiers: A Case Study (25 mins., 2004): Richard A. Clarke, former national counterterrorism coordinator and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, discusses the film's relevance with Michael A. Sheehan, former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, in a conversation moderated by Christopher E. Isham, chief of investigative projects for ABC News; Gillo Pontecorvo's Return to Algiers (58 mins., 1992): the filmmaker revisits the Algerian people after three decades of independence; 56-page book featuring excerpts from Saadi Yacef's original account of his arrest, a reprinted excerpt from the film's screenplay, a reprinted interview with co-writer Franco Solinas, a new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews, and biographical sketches on key figures in the French-Algerian War.

Technical Details

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3 Stills

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1 Trailer

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Reviews & Articles

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Review by Barry Forshaw on 7th October 2003

Here's some welcome news. A new label, Argent Films, is to release fully restored DVD versions of classic films by some of Europe's greatest and most respected directors: forthcoming releases will include works from luminaries such as De Sica, Visconti, Godard, Ferreri, Fellini and the Taviani brothers. Argent's first release is one of the most influential of modern films: The Battle of Algiers is director Gillo Pontecorvo's astonishing documentary-style account of the 1954-62 Franco-Algerian conflict - a nominee for numerous awards and winner of many. As relevant today as ever, the film was screened internally this month by The Pentagon (as a direct result of the challenge by terrorist tactics and guerilla warfare currently being faced by US forces in Iraq). Whether or not Pontecorvo would welcome this move is open to debate, but it demonstrates how cutting-edge the film still is. Ennio Morricone's powerful score is another distinct plus.

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Review by John Davies on 1st February 2001

Possibly the most compelling indictment of Colonialism, all the more convincing for its admirable integrity and gripping documentary-like realism.

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Review by David Parkinson on 10th December 2003

In 1954, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) launched its bid to end 120 years of French colonial occupation in Algeria. Based on actual events - although not without its moments of dramatic licence - The Battle of Algiers chronicles three years of insurrection and repression with such cine-veracity that the producers felt the need to append a caption at the end of the opening titles assuring viewers that `not one foot' of documentary material had been included.
Released just four years after Algeria had secured its independence from France, Gillo Pontecorvo's film has lost none of its power to shock and provoke. Indeed, it's been given renewed relevance by recent events in the Middle East. Some may see an irony in the decision of the United Nations not to intervene back in the mid-1950s, leaving France to conduct a pitiless and unpopular rearguard in the face of terrorist assault. Others may find justification for current tactics (on both sides of the debate/war), while others again might lament at humanity's inability to learn from the lessons of history. But what remains incontrovertible is the technical and dramatic skill that enabled Pontecorvo to create one of the most emotive political films ever made.
Pauline Kael compared the propagandist impact of The Battle of Algiers with Leni Riefenstahl's The Triumph of the Will. She even accused Pontecorvo of being that `most dangerous kind of Marxist, a Marxist poet'. She may have had a point about socialist agit-prop being afforded a cinematic and socio-political respectability that has always been denied right-wing film-making. But surely a more useful comparison could be made with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), which was also made on location, with a largely non-professional cast in a neo-realistic style that owed more to newsreel than studio artifice.
However, Pontecorvo avoids the melodramatics of Rossellini's film by presenting the victims of both the bomb blasts and the reprisals as genuinely innocent people rather than the faceless casualties of a revolutionary or imperialist cause. Consequently, the lingering shots of unsuspecting individuals before the carnage are every bit as disturbing as those depicting the rebels being tortured by Jean Martin's military. Pontecorvo's sympathies may be evident, but his conviction and condemnation are not devoid of compassion.
Despite winning the Golden Lion at Venice and being nominated for three Academy Awards, the film was banned in France for five years. It's this contentiousness on which its reputation still rests. But it also has a vigour, a commitment and an intelligence that is absent from too much modern cinema.

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This film is part of the following Film Collections

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