The Battle of Algiers is one of the best movies ever made. That's not my opinion, that's verifiable fact. It's a simply amazing movie and if you haven't seen it, you're a lesser person for it. It's great. It's one of the most real looking movies I've ever seen (probably because it didn't use professional actors for the most part). It's arresting from start to finish and it elucidates a chapter of western history that we either choose to ignore or simply don't know about, which is colonialism-- 20th century colonialism.
I saw the movie at the height of the Iraq War, back when our men and women were getting the shit blown out of them on a seemingly daily basis by an unseen, unknown, unaccountable enemy that just wanted to hurt as badly as they could. With that said, I don't think it's my experience at the time that makes it an allegorical film. It's a film that revolves around insurgent warfare and a domestic resistance against an occupying power. It makes for an interesting viewing experience to root for the Arabs to displace and destroy the white soldiers that are trying to bring order to their country.
I've written about this movie before, you can read my write up of it here.
Anyways, this is all a roundabout way of bringing up these series of photographs that are on the New York Times' photoblog (what an ugly word that is).
Look at it. Look at it because it's an interesting document of a world we have very little to do with. Look at it because the people in the photographs don't want you to. Look at it because its mere existance is a loogie in the eye of every French imperialist there ever was.
And at the end of the day, isn't that what it's really about?
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