The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection

The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection
by Gillo Pontecorvo

The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti, Yacef Saadi
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language); Arabic (Original Language)
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Box set, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Choke on truth, war on display
Summary: 5 Stars

This is the harshest, most ultimately gripping political docudrama I've ever seen. It has grainy, high-contrast cinematography with raw footage--it totally pulls you in to the bleeding heart of war in an unflinching manner. With the voice over narration you'll feel like you're watching live footage on CNN.
There are no individual connections or character development. It reports the tragic events of the French-Algerian War('54-'62) very matter of factly. It tries to get inside the minds of both sides. There are police shootings, terrorists bombings, assassinations, vengeful mobs, raids, public searches, graphic torture...it's gut-wrenching relevance emphatically pierces through even more so today. Brilliant filmmaking.

Summary of The Battle of Algiers - Criterion Collection

Director Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 movie The Battle of Algiers concerns the violent struggle in the late 1950s for Algerian independence from France, where the film was banned on its release for fear of creating civil disturbances. Certainly, the heady, insurrectionary mood of the film, enhanced by a relentlessly pulsating Ennio Morricone soundtrack, makes for an emotionally high temperature throughout. Decades later, the advent of the "war against terror" has only intensified the film's relevance.

Shot in a gripping, quasi-documentary style, The Battle of Algiers uses a cast of untrained actors coupled with a stern voiceover. Initially, the film focuses on the conversion of young hoodlum Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag) to F.L.N. (the Algerian Liberation Front). However, as a sequence of outrages and violent counter-terrorist measures ensue, it becomes clear that, as in Eisenstein's October, it is the Revolution itself that is the true star of the film.

Pontecorvo balances cinematic tension with grimly acute political insight. He also manages an evenhandedness in depicting the adversaries. He doesn't flinch from demonstrating the civilian consequences of the F.L.N.'s bombings, while Colonel Mathieu, the French office brought in to quell the nationalists, is played by Jean Martin as a determined, shrewd, and, in his own way, honorable man. However, the closing scenes of the movie--a welter of smoke, teeming street demonstrations, and the pealing white noise of ululations--leaves the viewer both intellectually and emotionally convinced of the rightfulness of the liberation struggle. This is surely among a handful of the finest movies ever made. --David Stubbs


One of the most influential films in the history of political cinema, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers focuses on the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film vividly recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in caf?s. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed. The Criterion Collection is proud present Gillo Pontecorvo's tour de force—a film with astonishing relevance today.

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