The film tells the story of the 1950s, as Algerians began to struggle for independence from the French government. And since each side resort to the ever increasing brutality, there is no framework but violence everywhere.
The film is not just a relentlessly gripping entertainment but also a cinematic Rorschach blot, a moral miasma that tosses our sympathies this way and that.
It neither demonizes nor lionizes either side of the conflict, aiming for just-the-ugly facts objectivity. Nobody who sees it is likely to feel comforted, or even vindicated. The emotion it most frequently and fervently inspires is sorrow.
illo Pontecorvo's fictional documentary classic of the mechanics of terrorism and counterterrorism is a tense, crack thriller and one of the greatest films to draw a portrait of both sides of urban conflict.
This seminal. meticulously crafted work about Algiers struggle for freedom won the Venic Film Fest top award, and deservedly garnered Pontecorvo Oscar nominations as Best Director and Co-scribe.
