La Battaglia di Algeri (Battle of Algiers, 1965, Algeria)

I had several conflicting emotions while watching this movie. They didn’t sort out themselves, so I won’t do it neither: 1. My political opinion regarding the right for self-determination of every nations sympathized with the Algerian people who wanted to get rid off from the French colonialist (Do I sound like a cliche-Marxist, oh well I can live with that.) 2. My aversion against the taboo of killing steadily rose while watching how the decisions were made that deleting human lives are OK in the struggle for freedom on one hand. And on the other one torture by the French was shown as routinely applied to gain information form captured Algerians. Both of them felt so out of line, that I was disgusted. I don’t have an answer what would I do in these life-or-death situations. But I do know that eliminating human lives is wrong. 3. Having studied a bit of film techniques I easily recognized what kind of tools the directors were using in order to gain our sympathy for their cause. I didn’t like to be played with this way. But this made me think that to what extent I would or would not recognize the same tendencies if it were to be done by European cinematographers. It was just too obvious here. No, I don’t have a conclusion. It is a disturbing thought-provoking movie and it is better if it remains such.