A dark page of French history ;the Algeria war was a taboo subject till the early seventies with such work as "avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès" and "RAS"; "Décembre " was a different matter since it's a work from an Algerian director ;yet he used French actors such as Michel Auclair and Julien Guiomar .
The tortures are not shown ,but one hears awful screams ; the executions are not on the screen either but the view of two orphans who've just lost their mother speaks to the heart .
Colonel Saint-Méran has a crisis of conscience ;he tries to reason the prisoner, to tell him the benefits of the French civilization , and that ,without them,their country would be doomed or primitive ; he even offers him to collaborate and "he would become an important man if he listened to him" ; in desperation, he threatens to have 14 hostages shot one by one ;and even though he's just pretending and they will fire blanks , the other military officers do not share his views .
Halfway through , the director leaves the barracks and shows us what his country supposedly won with the French help
The French history is imposed upon the pupils ;the schoolteacher teaches them that in 732 AD Charles Martel stopped the Arabs who invaded the French kingdom. Their own culture is denied ,but the officer had warned his prisoner : thanks to the colonizers ,they can enjoy schools ,hospitals,roads , the wonders of modern science !The pieds-noirs (French colonials born in Algeria) seemingly kindly treat the natives but actually condescendingly : they do not sit at the table,they eat in the kitchen ; theAlgerian way of life is solely represented by a wedding ,which is tragically cut short by the soldiers.
Director Lakhdar Hamina's follow-up "chronique des années de braise" was awarded in Cannes , 1975.
