Ahdat Sanawovach El-Djamr

It is very rare to see colonialism depicted from the perspective of the enslaved. In this great Algerian movie, director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina succeeded in showing the essence of colonial rule and many aspects of resistance to colonialism - from spontaneous to organized resistance, from the failure of the parliamentary opposition to the inevitability of armed struggle.

Social conditions and events that preceded, and eventually led to the Algerian revolution are shown from the perspective of an Algerian peasant. At the beginning, in late 1930s, he decides to leave his village that was hit by severe drought because the French built a dam on the river, and goes into the town expecting to find a better life for himself and his family. The story spans over a period of more than 15 years - from drought, famine, typhoid, through the Second World War. The post-war status quo is shown to be maintained through manipulation and repression, but also confronted through organized anti-colonial resistance, and the repression in French prisons, all the way up to 1st November of 1954 which is regarded as the starting date of the Algerian revolution. Based on actual events.

I saw this movie several times with the same pleasure each time, it is about the struggle for freedom of the Algerian people, and the huge sacrifices made by them to gain independence and liberty, for whom who are interested in knowing some of the glorious history of Algeria, this film is a bible, and for those just interested in freedom struggle this movie is a reference.

This massive historical piece gives the impression of being the launch of the great French Arab movie tradition but people closer to the source might know better.

There are stories of harsh conditions on the production but the result is imposing and spectacular.

We follow the life of one Algerian who sees history overtake him and becomes involved in the independence movement. Not the least intriguing scene is the one where his neighbors have a secret WW2 radio receiver but prove to be listening not to Winston Churchill but to Adolf Hitler because they know he is against the French. The progressive element are shown as considering the whole European war as a digression.

Most powerful scene shows the succession of events concerning the construction of a dam which dries up the community's water. All this is the stuff of culture shock.

The technical work is assured. Cameraman Gatti worked regularly with Pontecorvo, making him a natural choice for this one but he also did popular films, notably several by Sergio Corbucci.

In a better ordered world, this would be more familiar than BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and THE CRUEL SEA but we don't live in that world.

I only could see this film 25 years ago in Zurich in an independent cinema, no more ever since then, not even on DVD, no matter how much I tried.

Here, at last, I found it described and cannot help but tell everybody to see this wonderful movie, one of the best I have ever seen (I am the co-founder of an independent cinema in Austria).

Don't miss it, I hope that it it comes on DVD, finally!

It is an important human and political document about a time and circumstances, which seem gone, but, in one or the other way are going on and on all over the world even faster than ever and finally lead to problems for us all.

The "solution" of this film is not the one I prefer, but this film makes it understandable, how it came and comes to reactions, nobody really wants, 50 years ago, today, and, unfortunately also tomorrow. But, as history shows, this struggle was not in vain.