Battle of Algiers : Film as Revolutionary Spectacle

Abstract

The battle in the title of the film directed by Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo (1919–2006) was decisive in the Algerian Revolution (1954–62). Striving for a fair account of what took place, The Battle of Algiers gives two sides of the same story. On the one hand, the Algerians’ and Le Front de Libération Nationale's (FLN, the National Liberation Front) fight for independence from colonization and on the other hand the French determination to keep Algeria by violent means. The French attitude is epitomized by Mathieu (Jean Martin), the human‐rights flaunting colonel leading the French paratroopers. During inevitably violent encounters the French resort to torture and bombings, the Algerians to shootings and artisanal bombs. The film ends in 1962 with Algerian celebrations of a hard‐won independence. It is perhaps unsurprising therefore that the French authorities banned the film in France until the 1970s.