Battle of Algiers (1966)

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Country: Italy

"Should France remain in Algeria? if you answer 'yes', you must accept all the necessary consequences."

Told from the point of view of Ali and General Mathieu (who is based upon a real life soldier named Jacques Massu) it's a great juxtaposed story based on real life events. An Algerian guerrilla movement trying to get independence from France, starts a bloody battle and is willing to die for the cause no matter what. 2015 and 2016 have been difficult years for developed democracies in Europe and the rest of the World, terrorist attacks, radicalism and insurgent militias in the Middle East have been some of the problems, and is amazing how this movie made in the 60's can explain many things happening right now, so whether if you want to know how terrorism and radicalism work or how many soldiers work, you gotta see this film.  

Pontecorvo not only shows us how radicals approach children, women, vendors, old ladies, etc and turn them into terrorists, they are heartless fanatics indeed, but also he shows us the brutal practices of the military, in particular the many forms of torture and ruthless acts such as chopping up heads of political prisoners or burning people with blowturches . 

The film portrays in a realistically way how colonialism worked in Africa for years: an apartheid system, where European whites lived apart from the native population while oppresing any form of political discomfort, just like the European conquistadores "worked" for centuries in the Americas. Pontecorvo is a genius because he's always neutral, he does not interfere with the story and let us alone to judge the situations, such a huge contrast compared with those American movies about Vietnam War or Second War World, where American troops are martyrs and heroes in contrast with the evil communist Asians and Nazis who wanted to destroy the world. 

A solid, superb piece of work with a critical and incisive argument which is remarkable because for Pontecorvo would have been easy to be biased and to portray the military as the villians (due to his communist past and marxist ideology) but he chose not to. Pontecorvo's masterful use of camera, documentary and guerrilla style shooting are superb, we can see close ups, detail shots, kinda news footage and along with Ennio Morricone's soundtrack, consisting mainly of percussive instruments and background pre-recorded music which adds tension to the images, such as in the simultaneous terrorist bomb attacks, the result is so powerful. 

This is a very complex film, shot in a minimalistic way and in my opinion it's one of the best films about social conflicts ever made . The French won the Battle of Algiers but were defeated and finally kicked out from Algeria in the real life, and then unfortunately the native people faced years of repression and dictatorship...