Rating: NR
Length: 121 minutes

1.85:1 B&W

FRENCH & Arabic: Dolby Digital Mono

English

Watch as the natives of Algiers fight against their French occupiers in hopes to gain their sovereignty. The French live, work and play in their own lavish and cordoned section of the city while the native Arabs live in the run down section further from the coast. Tired of being treated like servants, they decide to revolt by using non-traditional military methods; basically what is referred to as terrorism.

This film shows every viewpoint and strategy from both sides of this dispute in a "documentary" like fashion; except the actors are acting as opposed to having a narrator. One of the resistance leaders actually plays himself in the film and this film was shot less than four years after the dispute had ended. The violence is realistic and the damage it does to people is graphic (not as graphic as it could have been if this was filmed in color). The one thing everyone will take away from this film is how violence/terrorism is viewed from both sides of the conflict; what the French consider a terrorist attack of innocent civilians the revolutionaries consider a legitimate attack against the State and its supporters. Yet, when the French kill innocent Arab civilians, in their eyes it was a justified military action.

There are some realistic torture and civilian casualty scenes in this movie that might make some people a bit squeamish. Non French and Arabic speakers will have to rely on subtitles.

• New high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
• Production gallery
• Theatrical and re-release trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• "Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth (1992)": a 37-minute documentary, narrated by literary critic Edward Said
• Exclusive 51-minute documentary on the making of "The Battle of Algiers", featuring new interviews with the director, cinematographer, composer, editor, actors, and film historians
• "Five Directors" (17 mins., 2004): Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone on the film's influence, style, and importance
• "Remembering History" (69 mins., 2004): an exclusive documentary that reconstructs the Algerian experience of the battle for independence, featuring interviews with historians and revolutionaries, including military leader Saadi Yacef
• "États d’armes" (2002): a 28-minute documentary excerpt featuring senior French military officers recalling the use of torture and execution to combat the rebellion
• "The Battle of Algiers: A Case Study" (25 mins., 2004): Richard A. Clarke, former national counterterrorism coordinator and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, discusses the film's relevance with Michael A. Sheehan, former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, in a conversation moderated by Christopher E. Isham, chief of investigative projects for ABC News
• "Gillo Pontecorvo's Return to Algiers" (58 mins., 1992): the filmmaker revisits the Algerian people after three decades of independence
• PLUS: a 56-page book featuring excerpts from Saadi Yacef’s original account of his arrest, a reprinted excerpt from the film's screenplay, a reprinted interview with co-writer Franco Solinas, a new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews, and biographical sketches on key figures in the French-Algerian War

This is a movie that will stay with you for a very long time and should make you ask questions. Throw in the two discs of extras and the book that Criterion has provided and this is a no-brainer! It's more than worth the $30+ that most stores are asking for it and you'll want to watch the film and extras more than once.

Brahim Hadjadj - Ali La Pointe

Fusia El Kader - Halima

Mohamed Ben Kassen - Petit Omar

Samia Kerbash - One of the girls

Jean Martin - Col. Mathieu

[My Name is Nobody]

Omar

Ugo Paletti - Captain

Yacef Saadi - Saadi Yacef

IMDB
DVD Verdict