The Olive Trees of Justice

[Blue] depicts the nuances of irreconcilable inequalities, the web of local subtleties that both compose and miss the historically big picture.

Jules Rascheff’s black-and-white cinematography is stunning yet absolutely without mannerism, so that this film often feels like a documentary, an effect further aided by the use of mostly non-professionals in the cast.

Jarre's work here supplements Blue's dialectic docudrama with an elevating touch of ironic longing and nostalgia.

We get a poignant sense of nostalgia (complete with flashbacks to Jean's childhood) as well as glimpses of racial inequity, and a strong sense of the inevitable necessity of change.

The acting, primarily by non-professionals with the exception of Jean Pélégri who played Jean's father, is exceptional.

A sentimental but biting remembrance of an Algeria that was by a clear-eyed Frenchman who has returned as the country's war for independence is ending.