"If you want to understand what is happening right now in Iraq, I
suggest a movie that was quite well-known to a number of people some
years ago. . . . It's called The Battle of Algiers.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
A western nation, with overwhelming superiority in manpower and
armaments, attempts to quell a local insurgency in a majority Muslim
country. "Mission accomplished" is declared, and for a while, it seems
real. But, insurgencies have a way of not being so easily snuffed out.
Maybe armaments alone can't accomplish the mission after all. Maybe
they make things worse.
This is a description of Gillo Pontecorvo's classic film, The Battle
of Algiers, which was made in 1965, and follows French efforts to
control Algeria in the 1950s. On its own terms, it is extraordinary.
Using the immediacy of documentary technique- rough camera work, non
actors, real locations- the violence is immediate and complicated.
The emotional impact for a political film is extraordinary because the
filmmakers want the audience to sympathize with the rebels. One of the
most often cited scenes shows an insurgent being questioned about the
morality of using women's handbags to deliver bombs, thus killing
innocent people. The insurgent calmly responds that since they are
fighting an opponent who has much more sophisticated weaponry, they
have no choice. He offers to exchange all the rebel handbags for all
the French airplanes.
The Pentagon's Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict office
held a screening last August.
-- Jed Dietz | 
