[size=3][size=3]Indigenes is a beautiful, fiercely humanistic, fiercely uncompromising film that no one should miss.[/size][/size]
[img]http://www.cineleparc.be/img/movies/movie_289[/img]
[size=3]Indigenes is French for The Indigenous, but the film's official American title… More
[size=3][size=3]Indigenes is a beautiful, fiercely humanistic, fiercely uncompromising film that no one should miss.[/size][/size]
[img]http://www.cineleparc.be/img/movies/movie_289[/img]
[size=3]Indigenes is French for The Indigenous, but the film's official American title is Days of Glory. It is rich and powerful, with an absolutely stellar cast and major historical importance to boot.[/size]
[size=3]This film is deeply satisfying just as a story. You don't have to care a whit about history to be swept up by it. But on top of its quality as a drama, Indigenes has profound historical significance as the first major film to expose the outrageous and disgusting racism in white French society during the World War II era (and I'm sure still today).[/size]
[size=3]In the United States, white folks degrade black Americans. In France it's the Algerians, and North Africans in general, who get the subhuman treatment. Every culture seems to have a caste-like stratification, where a certain group desperately tries to turn itself into a privileged caste and render another group inferior. The French, it appears, have as much to be ashamed of as Americans on this score. Although they probably didn't murder and torture their subjugated caste with quite the gusto American racists did. I'm sure no one beats Americans there![/size]
[size=3]The film follows the experiences of a regiment in WWII from Algeria, a colony just across the Mediterranean from France. They fight one battle in Africa and then are shipped to France to continue fighting there.[/size]
[size=3]The soldiers are initially devout in their support of the war effort. But as the indignities they face mount, their faith corrodes. And for good reason. I'm surprised they didn't rebel openly and start killing the French. They certainly would have been justified in doing that.[/size]
[size=3]As an example: all the white regiments got leave occasionally, allowing them to visit family or live it up in Paris. The Algerians spent the entire war without getting even one day off! White French men also conspired to prevent Algerians from befriending any white women. When one soldier meets a white woman in Marseille and tries to write her, all his letters are destroyed by the censors. He thinks the woman is ignoring his letters, when in reality she has never gotten them. [/size][size=3]The white woman, incidentally, suffers the same fate. She tries writing him, but her letters aren't delivered either.[/size]
[size=3]And that's not the worst of it. The final humiliation coming in the last 15 minutes of the film is the worst of all. I won't give it away.[/size]
[size=3]I am presuming that the accusations the film makes are true. Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions. But I know quite a bit about France. I've even lived there. I'm reasonably confident that the filmmaker is not wide of the mark.[/size]
[size=3]The cast, made up mostly of Arabic-speaking men, was absolutely phenomenal. At one point, during a particularly tough battle scene, I started crying, but not out of empathy for the characters and the death that was all around them. I was crying because the acting was so out-of-this-world.[/size]
[size=3]I have no idea where they found these Arab men. But every one of them has the capacity to become major film stars, especially the man that played the most senior Algerian officer. His character was one of the only literate Algerians, and he struggled the most to win acceptance as an equal. His disillusionment with the ideals of the French Revolution is perhaps the most crushing, because he believed the lies the most.[/size]
[size=3]No one does hypocrisy better than white people who proclaim democratic ideals in one breath and then subjugate an entire race in the next breath. This lesson hits the educated Algerian the most violently. Everything he was ever taught in Algeria about the benefits of joining French civilization was a mountain of lies.[/size]
[size=3]Do your best to remember this actor's name: [/size][size=3][color=#000000][b]Sami Bouajila.[/b] Not just a character actor who is Sean Penn's equal, this man also has the bodily charisma to be a leading man of major proportions. I can see him being the first Arab James Bond! Wouldn't that be thrilling? The world needs more Arab movie stars.[/color][/size]
[size=3]I'm going to do some research on all these men and see if I can learn something. It could be that they're major stars in the Arabic-speaking world and I have no idea. That wouldn't be a surprise, given that Americans get no information about Arab culture outside of war zones.[/size]
[size=3]A word about the title: The distributor decided to release the film in the United States under the hackneyed title Days of Glory. Haven't there been 1000 war movies with a title like that? I think Indigenes would have been a far more interesting and unique title. But perhaps the more cliche-sounding moniker will help sell the film in America. I'm fine with dumbing down titles if it brings in more people. No one will be able to escape the power of this film if we can just get them into the theater.[/size]
[size=3]*************[/size]
[size=3]Postscript a week later: I did some research on Sami Bouajila and found that he starred in a 2001 French movie called The Adventures of Felix, where he plays a gay guy with HIV. So he's got range![/size]