Guerre d'Algérie 1954-1962

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931553.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0

Quite weak, but there is some hope for up-coming projects.

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/19/soldat.html

Muriel opens with a seemingly idiosyncratic series of fragmented images, as a client stands in the doorway of an antique dealer, Helene's (Delphine Seyrig) apartment to provide specific details on her furniture request. Oddly, the client specifies that she does not want anything "old fashioned". Helene is a widow, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her former lover, Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kerien), whom she had not seen since the war. Reacting to young Bernard's (Jean-Baptiste Thierree) disinterest, Helene remarks that Alphonse could be Bernard's father. However, Bernard later explains to Alphonse's lover, Francoise (Nita Klein), that Helene is his stepmother. Other incongruous patterns emerge. Bernard mentions that he is meeting a girl named Muriel later in the evening, but is elusive about their relationship. Despite Helene's diligence in noting the arrival of Alphonse's train, she encounters an empty train station. The evening walk from the train station is intercut with a montage of daylight images of the port town. Helene announces that dinner will consist of chicken and mushrooms, but Francoise comments in approval that Alphonse loves sausage and Italian salami. Moreover, during the course of dinner, Helene encourages Alphonse to have some more cabbage and fennel. Later in the evening, a man named Roland de Smoke (Claude Sainval) arrives at the house to escort Helene to the casino, but Alphonse later infers that Helene left the house alone to meet Roland at the casino. Alphonse's motives for the visit are equally ambiguous. He seems eager to rekindle his relationship with Helene, but brings Francoise to the trip, and seems resigned to the idea that their life before the war is irretrievably lost. Similarly, Bernard's service in the Algerian war proves to be a painful, inescapable memory that resigns him to a life of isolation and profound guilt.

Alain Resnais creates a visual and thematic conundrum on the effects of war on the lives of three emotionally scarred survivors in Muriel. Using jarring jump cuts and frenetic montage sequences, Helene is literally surrounded by the past, as she uses the apartment to showcase and sell antique furniture. Alphonse, who has struggled to rebuild his life after the war, is unable to reconcile with their failed relationship, and returns to Helene in order to escape personal problems. Bernard, haunted by the memory of a nameless war casualty, sits in a dilapidated studio endlessly replaying military footage, struggling with his own personal demons. As in Francois Truffaut's The Green Room, an unnatural, pervasive green hue creates a sense of unresolved longing and insurmountable loss. Muriel is a cinematically groundbreaking, cryptic, and endlessly fascinating labyrinthine puzzle on memory and altered perception - an honest, yet challenging portrait of isolating guilt and the tragedy of survival.

Following the 1945 unconditional surrender of Hitler's Germany and Hirohito's Japan, the French political leaders, slinking back from their forced exile, sought to regain their pre-war colonies in Asia and Africa. Unfortunately for their pretensions, the war had changed the opinions of the colonials and resistance groups sprang up. In Indochina, they were led by Ho Chi Minh, who drove the French out in 1954. On May 8 of that year, the Viet Mihn ended French occupation of Indochina by overrunning the French stronghold at Dien Bien Phu and capturing the garrison. In 1960, the French were driven out of Algeria by the FLN (Front de Liberation National), or rather the French slunk out, after 100 years of colonization. Truly, the 1950s were a decade the French would rather forget.

France | 2007 | col | 89 mins | dir. Mehdi Charef, with Mamada, Thomas Millet

Writer-Director Mehdi Charef, who was 11 during the summer of Algerian independence, portrays the eventful final weeks of French colonial rule through the eyes of a young newspaper delivery boy, Ali. An engrossing and entertaining take on the colonial era and its upheavals, the film boasts a great cast and superb cinematography.

Tasma?s film in particular is a striking and powerful work, which depicts in careful detail the events leading up the bloody assault on Algerians by the Paris police on October 17, 1961, as well as the massacre itself.

http://www.cinemafrica.org/spip.php?article788

Set in Provence, France in 1962 during the Algerian crisis, Wild Reeds focuses on four young adults, who are attempting to sort out their lives ? personally, politically, and socially. This is Breaking Away without collegiate antagonists or bicycle races and is American Grafitti without wheels, but is accomplished at a far more intimate level.

Historical Background: Gilberto ("Gillo") Pontocorvo was born on November 19, 1919 in Pisa Italy. He was one of ten children of a wealthy Jewish industrialist. One of his younger brothers became a scientist of world renown, so this was a highly talented family. Gillo was quite apolitical as he was growing up and something of a playboy instead. He played in tennis tournaments, for a while, throughout Europe. In France, Gillo for the first time experienced the diversity of opinions and freedom of thought typical of a democracy, which contrasted sharply with his boyhood experiences in Fascist Italy. In Paris, he made the acquaintance of some of the leading leftist intellectuals and his political thinking was awakened. He was sufficiently influenced by what he learned that he joined the Communist Party in 1941 and worked as a correspondent for some leftist publications. The leaders of the French Communist Party asked him to return to Italy and help organize the anti-Fascist partisans. He fought in the Milan Resistance from 1943 until the liberation.

Shortly after World War II, Pontecorvo saw a screening of Rossellini's Paisan and it was a life-altering experience for him. He decided that he would have to become a filmmaker, bought a camera, and took work as an assistant to Yves Allégret, Mario Monicelli, and other directors. His debut film as a director was The Wide Blue Road (1957). His second film, Kapò (1960), brought him both critical attention and a working relationship with cinematographer Marcello Gatti, who he would use again for his career-making film, The Battle of Algiers (1966). Despite the praise and awards heaped on The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo made only two subsequent films: Burn! (1969), widely considered his second best film, and Orgo (1979). Pontecorvo explains this sparse output as a character defect. He is unable to undertake filming unless he is first fully satisfied with a script. Nevertheless, on the basis of The Battle of Algiers alone, his reputation as a great filmmaker is solidly grounded.

Pontecorvo and Solinas had already drafted a script for a film about the Algerian War when they were approached by Saadi Yacef, the former military leader in Algiers for the Front de Libératon Nationale (FLN) (the insurgents that spearheaded the liberation effort in Algeria). Yacef had been recently released from a French prison and was carrying around a manuscript for a screenplay based on his memoirs, written while he was in prison, detailing the insurrection of the mid-fifties. He was looking for a director with leftist leanings who might want to film his version of events for posterity. After being turned down by Francesco Rosi and Luchino Visconti, Yacef offered his screenplay to Pontecorvo. Pontecorvo and Solinas agreed to take a look at it but it was so blatantly one sided that they could not agree. Instead, they offered to write a script based on Yacef's writings but balancing it with some of the French side of the story. Yacef agreed and also became co-producer of the film, putting up 45% of the funding. The result was a film that was meticulously even-handed though ultimately sympathetic to the struggle for independence. It was condemned in France (where it was banned until 1971), but widely acclaimed everywhere else, taking the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in its year of release.

The native Algerians are a unique ethnic group, formed by the intermarriage of Arabs that invaded North Africa after 600 A.D. with the nomadic Berbers that had occupied the country since about 3000 B.C. The French occupation of Algeria began in 1830, during the reign of Charles X, but it took until 1871 for the French to fully pacify the Algerians. When France lost the Alsace-Lorraine territory in the Franco-Prussian War, many of the French Catholics from those provinces fled and relocated in Algiers. These European settlers became known as colons and, later, pied-noirs. In contrast to their colonies in Tunisia and Morocco, the French ruled Algeria as a district of France itself and the colons were French citizens. The native Algerians were theoretically eligible for French citizenship as well, but the colons established policies making it very difficult so as to limit the influence of the native Algerians. The colons controlled both the government and the economy of the country. The Algerians repeatedly attempted to achieve greater equality by every conceivable peaceful means, but were thwarted every time. During World War II, many Algerians were drafted into service for France and the units composed mainly of native Algerians were often assigned the most hazardous tasks. The Germans occupied Algeria early in the war but were driven out by the Allies in 1942. The Algerians quite naturally felt that their service in the war had earned them equality of status, but the colons continued to block every effort of the native population to achieve influence in proportion to their numbers. The social structure of the country was essentially apartheid. In Algiers, for example, the European sector of the city consisted of a modern European style city while the native Algerians lived in poverty in cramped quarters called the Casbah. The finest beaches on the Mediterranean were reserved for the colons while the natives were relegated to the pebbled ones. Frustrated at the lack of progress through peaceful means, some of the Algerians formed the FLN in 1954, issuing the First Proclamation (highlighted near the film's beginning) on November 1st of that year.

Algérie, 1959. Alors que les attaques des combattants du Front de libération nationale s'intensifient, le jeune lieutenant Terrien prend le commandement d'une section de l'armée française dans les hautes montagnes kabyles. Sa mission : capturer mort ou vif le chef de la rébellion dans la région. Le manque d'expérience de Terrien est atténué par le travail exemplaire du sergent Dougnac, un militaire désabusé

B.T made 2 films in 1992. L627 and La guerre sans nom. I prefer telling second one due to not adding the relevant documentary by FLIXTER yet.

Nothing special just killing people. That is it. As u well know people love this kind of subjects. 1,5 million people were killed. Nothing more. Drink Perrier to celebrate that. We drink Coca-Cola after Iraq War. Also 1,5 million people died. What a coincidense.

Advising different drinks is showing a health matter between societies. You can see the difference. However, I am more concious about human life. More killing film is under my film list of ''Guerre d'Algérie 1954-1962''.

What a day just kill, killl, kill. A votre sante.

When upper-middle-class Parisian couple Georges and Anne (Auteuil and Binoche) begin to receive a series of increasingly disturbing videotapes that depict scenes and events collected from their lives, dread soon permeates every aspect of their existence. Eventually, Georges?s personal history is revealed to be influenced by France?s political history, particularly by its colonization of Algeria and its treatment of Algerian immigrants. A thriller that also touches upon issues of class and race, Caché leaves the viewer in a state of uneasy paranoia.

Fred Zinnemann's attention to detail in The Day of the Jackal seems very close to Frederick Forsyth's intricate novel, and pulls off the feat of sustaining suspense in this political thriller, even though we know the Jackal must eventually fail.

A secret underground terrorist group in France called the OAS decide to hire a professional killer to assassinate French President Charles De Gaulle (Adrien Cayla-Legrand) after their own attempts end in failure. The name recommended to them is the ?Jackal?, an anonymous hit man apparently responsible for a string of high profile killings. Charles Calthrop (Edward Fox) is the infamous Jackal, taking his name from the French spelling ? Chacal. Edward Fox is impassively effective as the cold-fish English assassin contracted to kill De Gaulle. The Jackal painstakingly puts his plan into action, involving gathering a new identity, a forged drivers license and French passport to enable him to travel without being detected. The forger Caron (Ronald Pickup) guesses the documents are for a special purpose and attempts to blackmail Fox into handing over money, and pays a heavy price for such a gamble. A special rifle is needed for the hit so a specialist gunsmith (Cyril Cusack) is approached to build a custom designed rifle with explosive bullets ? though once again his reward is not what he would have expected as Fox attempts to cover his tracks.

Chief Inspector Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) is the French detective assigned to hunting the Jackal down, through an informer he learns of the Jackal?s existence but a range of disguises by the Jackal hinder their attempts to capture him. Fox is by now in France making final preparations, to keep away from the French authorities he seeks sexual partners who will unknowingly provide him with refuge, both wealthy Colette (Delphine Seyrig) and homosexual Bernard (Anton Rodgers) fall into this category ? both are silenced by Fox once they are no longer needed. The tracking Lebel knows the Jackal is in Paris and preparing to strike, his only option is to flood the Liberation Day celebrations that De Gaule is attending with police officers in the hope of a lucky break. Fox this time disguises himself as a war veteran to pass unnoticed through his surroundings, then enters an overlooking flat to set up his rifle and assassinate the French president. At the very moment Fox has De Gaule in his sights, Lebel bursts into the flat and kills the cold-blooded assassin.

Though slow paced, with each passing moment the tension grips as the Jackal nears his target. The film was later remade starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere under the title of The Jackal, but it had none of the originals finesse and only serves to make people want to see the original again

http://www.dvdclassik.com/Critiques/coffret-jacques-rozier-dvd.htm

Protesto (La Haine) Mathieu Kassovitz'in 1995 y?l?nda çekti?i Frans?z filmi. Film, Paris'in gettolar?nda ya?ayan biri pied-noir (Said), biri yahudi (Vinz), biri ise siyahi (Hubert) üç arkada??n hikâyesini konu alarak, Fransa'da gettolarda ya?ayan gençlerin hayat?ndan bir kesit sunmaktad?r.

Kassovitz'in filmi ?rkç?l??a ve sosyal s?n?f farkl?l?klar?na yapt??? göndermeler nedeniyle hem Fransa'da hem de dünyada oldukça ses getirmi?tir. Film, siyah-beyaz çekilmi? olmas?n?n yan? s?ra müzikleri (örne?in, patronla derdini anlatan Jamaikal?'n?n söyledi?i ?ark? gibi) ve görece k?sa olmas? gibi özellikleri nedeniyle vurucu bir atmosfer yarat?yor.