The Battle of Algiers [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs] [Blu-ray]

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo Gillo Pontecorvo

Overview

This highly political film about the Algerian struggle for independence from France took "Best Film" honors at the 1966 Venice Film Festival. The bulk of the film is shot in flashback, presented as the memories of Ali (Brahim Haggiag), a leading member of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), when finally captured by the French in 1957. Three years earlier, Ali was a petty thief who joined the secretive organization in order to help rid the Casbah of vice associated with the colonial government. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell what soon becomes a nationwide revolt. After the flashback, Ali and the last of the FLN leaders are killed, and the film takes on a more general focus, leading to the declaration of Algerian independence in 1962. Director Gillo Pontecorvo's careful re-creation of a complicated guerrilla struggle presents a rather partisan view of some complex social and political issues, which got the film banned in France for many years. That should not come as a surprise, for La Battaglia di Algeri was subsidized by the Algerian government and -- with the exception of Jean Martin and Tommaso Neri as French officers -- the cast was entirely Algerian as well. At least three versions exist, running 135, 125, and 120 minutes.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/09/2011
UPC:	0715515085113
Original Release:	1966
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:01:00
Sales rank:	8,887

Special Features

Disc one: ; High-definition transfer, supervised by director of photography Marcello Gatti, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack ; Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship Truth, a documentary narrated by literary critic Edward Said; Morxist poetry: The making of "The Battle of Algiers," a documentary featuring interviews with Pontecorvo, Gatti, and composer Ennio Morricone, among others ; Interviews with Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone on the film's influence, style, and importance; Production gallery ; Theatrical and rerelease trailers ; Disc two: History and the Film: ; Remembering History a documentary on the Algerian experience of the battle for independence ; "États d'armes," a documentary exerpt featuring senior French military officers recalling the use of torture and execution to combat the Algerian rebellion; "The Battle of Algiers": A Case Study, a video piece featuring U.S. counterterrorism experts; Gillo Pontecorvo's Return to Algiers, a documentary in which the filmmaker revisits the country after three decades of independece

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Saadi Yacef	Djafar
Jean Martin	Colonel Mathieu
Brahim Haggiag	Ali La Pointe
Tommaso Neri	Captain
Samia Kerbash	One of the Girls,Fathia
Fawzia el Kader	Halima
Mohamed Ben Kassen	Petit Omar
Brahim Hadjadj	Ali la Pointe
Gene Wesson	Actor
Franco Moruzzi	Actor
Ennio Morricone	Composer
Gillo Pontecorvo	Composer

Technical Credits

Gillo Pontecorvo

Franco Solinas

Gillo Pontecorvo	Director,Screenwriter
Franco Solinas	Screenwriter
Antonio Musu	Producer
Saadi Yacef	Producer
Fred Baker	Executive Producer
Aldo Gasparri	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

A forerunner of the "docudrama," this 1965 Italian-Algerian co-production won a slew of awards and became an unlikely international success that remains eerily resonant today. It shows the guerrilla war for Algerian independence from the French in 1954 as seen through the eyes of some of the participants. Shot in the actual locations, mixing actors with real-life combatants and eschewing the use of stock or newsreel footage, Battle comes across as probably being closer to the truth than any straight documentary could have been, mainly because it captures the complexities of the situation without resorting to facile finger-pointing. Although banned in France for many years, the film has become accepted as a masterpiece of its kind, conveying emotion without ignoring cold, hard facts. Its principal asset is a rigorous, impartial examination of views held by both sides, carefully woven into the narrative. Director Gillo Pontecorvo never again made a motion picture of Battle's style, depth, or impact; but his place film history is assured nonetheless, if only on the strength of this powerfully affecting movie.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

The principal characteristic of Gillo Pontecorvo's La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) is its ferocious authenticity. It is a monument of neo-realism in the best tradition of Vittorio De Sica (Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves) and Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City). La Battaglia di Algeri is made with such astonishing, feral realism that it effectively blurs the line between documentary and fiction filmmaking. Using professional and non-professional actors, and, unbelievably, no newsreel footage, Pontecorvo draws out the passion and story of the Algerian people trying to free themselves from French rule in the mid-Fifties. There are any number of striking, memorable sequences, and the film became influential for the revolutionary mentality which hit the United States around the same time (it was apparently a favorite film of The Black Panthers). A stylistic connection can also be made between one of the most important American films of the 1960s, Bonnie and Clyde, and this movie, which preceded it by a year.

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