In contemporary cinema, immersion and realism can be taken for granted, as they’ve become aesthetic devices that can be found in the most mainstream of blockbusters (see this summer’s “Jason Bourne“). However, fifty years ago, Gillo Pontecorvo stunned the cinematic world with “The Battle Of Algiers,” and the powerful docu-realist experience is headed back to the big screen soon to celebrate its anniversary with a newly restored print.
Based on the book by Saadi Yacef, with a score co-composed by Ennio Morricone, “The Battle Of Algiers” is a vibrant and vital telling of the fight for Algerian independence, with production comprised almost entirely of non-actors and filmed in the streets of Algiers. The film sparked no shortage of controversy, and was even banned for a time in France, but it almost was nearly an instant classic. Here’s the synopsis:
Algiers, 1957: French paratroopers inch their way through the labyrinthine byways of the Casbah to zero in on the hideout of the last rebel still free in the city. Flashback three years earlier, as the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) decides on urban warfare. Thus begin the provocations, assassinations, hair-breadth escapes, and reprisals; Algerian women — disguised as chic Europeans — depositing bombs at a sidewalk café, a teenagers’ hang-out and an Air France office; and massive, surging crowd scenes unfolding with gripping realism.
Shot in the streets of Algiers, The Battle of Algiers vividly re-creates the tumultuous uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As the violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence.
The new 4K restoration has screened at TIFF, hits the New York Film Festival next, and will start rolling out across the country in October.
