The Battle of Algiers
Director Gillo Pontecorvo managed, along with actor, writer, and producer Saadi Yacef (who was himself a part of the Algerian liberation forces during the campaign), to re-create the revolution in the streets of Algiers with breathtaking honesty. Shot in stark black and white, the camera often handheld, the film achieves a level of realism that is really quite startling. It is not documentary-like, but something else, and that something brings me back to the word "document"; feeling as if it were living and breathing history, the film is so masterfully assembled that it is a perfect piece of cinematic art—one of the most vital and important films to come along in years, and one that just happens to have been released nearly 40 years ago.
By Bradley Steinbacher
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