Battle of Algiers
1965, Motion Picture (French and Arabic with English subtitles)
Rating: 4 Coffee Cups

Now re-released for art houses and soon to appear on DVD, Bataille d'Alger originally was commissioned by the Algerian government of the early 1960s to celebrate their "victory" in ridding themselves of the French. In the US, it became a cult favorite for US college students and leftist sympathizers in the days of the Vietnam War.

Presented as a pseudo-documentary, it is the story of the beginning of Algeria's struggle against French imperialists in the 1950's. The Algerians are represented by a group of 5 revolutionaries, while a paratrooper colonel and his men take the French side. Each camp spends nearly the entire movie inflicting the maximum pain on the other guys, trying to destroy the enemy's will to resist. The Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) mobilizes the poor Arabs of Algiers' Kasbah for violent, devastating attacks on French policemen, soldiers, and interests. The colonialists in turn respond with bombings of their own, as well as torture of prisoners and suspected terrorists, shown in some detail.

The film is quite adept at getting inside the heads of both the French and the Algerians to understand why they do what they do. The director is so successful that many viewers start feeling sympathetic with Algerians like Ali La Pointe and his band and wanting them to succeed, even in acts as appalling as setting a bomb near European kids at an ice-cream parlor. The French perspective is made quite clear though the fictional Colonel Mathieu. In one of the more chilling scenes, reporters at a press conference ask the officer to respond to the allegations of his troops' abuse and torture of Muslim prisoners. When Mathieu is cornered, he goes blank, and in monotone delivers, "Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' then you must accept all the necessary consequences."

Good as it is on its own, the most interesting thing about Battle of Algiers might be the Pentagon's recent screening of this movie for its officials (and subsequently for general American audiences). It's anyone's guess why the military decided to bring out a movie that is nearly 40 years old, but the viewer can easily make a conjecture or two in light of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. The French government's fumbling with its own "insurgents" in 1950's Algeria is looking very much like the United States' dealings with Falujah, Muqtada as-Sadr, as well as other elements in the Iraq Saddam Hussein left behind.

What lessons, good or bad, might the Pentagon learn from Battle of Algiers? Does it intend to be successful where the French failed? Perhaps the generals think that the French could not hold onto Algeria because of the fresh wounds they sustained in Indo-China, and because of the increasing world opinion against French policy in Algeria. The French were losing money and political support; they were too weak to hold on in the Maghrib. Perhaps the Pentagon comforts itself with the idea that no world power has ever had the wealth, resources, political clout or arsenal that America has readily available right now. The neo-conservatives in Washington understand that Muslim insurgencies need not be swept away in one generation. They are allowing themselves a long time in which to work. Whereas the French ran out of time; the Americans are willing to stand by and "stay the course." If Cheney and Rumsfeld go to their graves without their tasks accomplished, surely the next generation will pick up the torch in the 100-year war against "terrorism," not just in Algeria, but the whole world! To the U.S., the French collapse in Algeria might be the story they don't mean to repeat.

But there is a message about the film that Muslims in particular need to remember. At the end of the film, Algerian independence is seemingly secured, and the cheering crowds dance with glee as the French are forced back. But in real life-after the film, in history-was there cause to celebrate? Did the French really lose? And if so, what did they lose? Paris had to resettle throngs of its former citizens who settled in Algeria for generations, and re-assimilate them to indigenous French culture. Aside from a bit of international embarrassment, heavy casualties and lost funds, the French landed on their feet eventually. But when it became time for Algeria's FLN to create its independent government structure, they wanted to base it upon a respected and established pattern. Not the British, or the American, but something more…familiar. It turned out to be not the Islamic, but the French model! And so it would be, that every time Algiers needed advice, or favors, they would call upon their former masters in Paris, insuring French influence would never quite go away.