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At our age we will have already seen how genres go in and out of vogue. At the moment we are in the middle of a vampire cluster with the resurgence for mythological based films on the horizon with the upcoming releases of Percy Jackson and Clash Of The Titans. Similarly so this can be the case with countries as was the 1960s for the African nation of Algeria.
Although the Algerian film industry is still happily chugging along the two films that we will be sampling (Z and The Battle of Algiers) both of which have achieved classical status.
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
The Algerian War of Independence was a tangible memory when this film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival - about four years - with the gap being much shorter during filming. As such the events recounted in The Battle of Algiers are all the more poignant.
The story is a simple one, and has been recently compared to the current skirmish in Iraq, with a group of oppressed Algerians labelled the Front de Libération Nationale taking on guerrilla tactics as a means to drive out the occupying colonial forces. However, Pontecorvo never tries to romanticise the plight of the downtrodden people nor does he attempt to idolise the French forces who take action against the new threat. Instead he opts for a far more even-handed approach with heroes and villains on both sides and each faction engaging in their own variants of atrocity.
The fact that this was screened in the Pentagon as a means of illustrating how the Americans should not fall into the same traps The Battle For Algiers still remains one of the most relevant war films in recent history. In the place of suicide bombers and WMDs there are bombs planted in cafes by Arab women (since the soldiers would not search them) and although we may have moved on technologically it goes to illustrate how much modern military methods still end up in the quagmire.
Directed By Costa Gavras
When the US government tried to prevent the distribution of a foreign language film in their own country, you would think that it would not be too difficult. In 1969 however, with the help of an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture they failed utterly. The film was of course Z, one of the most powerful political polemics ever made.
The audacity of Z is clear from the very beginning when it states "that no character or event is accidentally based on fact, it is DELIBERATE". From this moment you know you’re watching something truly special. Set in an unnamed country (obviously Greece), the film depicts the murder of an unnamed deputy (clearly Lambrakis) and the investigation into his death, revealing involvement at the highest echelons of power. All of this unfolds at a brilliantly fast pace, helped along by some brilliant directorial choices such as keeping pace with a military drum, which expertly satirises the army. However in the last few minutes, the tone and style suddenly change completely, as we switch to a news desk which reveals what happened next, forcing the viewer to accept that this was based on reality. The prosecution was systematically murdered and the colonels took power in a military coup and established an authoritarian government banning many things such as Sartre, sociology, Aeschylus and even the letter Z.
Forty years later Z still makes for highly provocative and hugely enjoyable viewing and is an undisputed masterpiece of political filmmaking.
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