Woo baby! What a stonking film this is. An Italian production made in 1966, dramatising the Algerian war of independence and French counter-insurgency tactics in the mid to late 1950s.But really, as interesting as all that is, its the performances. The French commander is so compelling yet understated in his role, I actually started to wonder if that section was documentary footage. It's gripping cinema.
According to sources, the key filmic influences were "Italian neo-realism, French cinema verite and Soviet socialist realism". I have no idea what neo-realism is, frankly, but the rest of that sounds about right I suppose. Whatevs. I hasten to add, there's none of tiresome worthiness and longwinded "mass as actor" shots of lowgrade Soviet agitprop.
More interestingly, this: The Pentagon screened it in 2003 to get their Intel guys thinking about the emerging challenge of the Iraqi insurgency. According to Wiki, the flyer for the Pentagon screening read:
How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.
Which gave me pause to think - once again, we find the US following the French around, falling in the same traps without really looking at the French experience, and making the same mistakes - the other prime example, of course, being Vietnam.
Anyways - if this film doesn't boot your arse into next Tuesday then .... I guess you're just, erm.... interested in other things.
Oh yes, and props to Fyodor who wins the Lucky d'Or prize for predicting the subject of this post on the basis of some scant clues on the Truffaut thread.
7 comments:
There's another interesting France-USA parallel in the movie, in that the character of Col. Mathieu is said to be based on Marcel Bigeard, the highly-decorated parachute regiment (3ème RPC in the Battle of Algiers) commander and veteran of Dien Bien Phu. In modern French military history he's the closest equivalent to David Hackworth, who is likewise said to be the template for LTC Kilgore ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning") in Apocalypse Now.
Cool!
Interestingly, I understand quite a few former Wehrmacht died at Dien Bien Phu in the foreign legion. Don't know much about the legion's role in Algeria.
I have a Tunisian friend, and the differences are interesting. Their way of independence was short lived, and fought almost entirely between former comrades in the French army - ie by Tunisian ex-servicemen. Not the same popular/ civilian uprising aspect.
Another link, somewhat closer to home: many of the French pied noir who'd grown up in Algeria resettled in New Caledonia - and no doubt some still live there today, not far off the coast of Quinceland.
Algeria IS the Legion, Leftiste. It was the Legion that conquered it, along with much of Francophone Africa. Until the abandonment of the colony Sidi bel Abbes in Algeria was The Legion's home, in all senses of the word, but particularly spiritual.
Unlike the British, who always maintained a professional army, separate from the population, to police their empire, the French reconciled conscription within the republic and the maintenance of their empire by maintaining volunteer "colonial" units and by using mercenaries, i.e. the Legion, overseas.
Thus the Legion and the colonial units (Bigeard's 3ème RPC is the 3rd Colonial Parachute Regiment) were disproportionately involved in France's wars of decolonisation, notably Indochina and Algeria. It was the dogmatic commitment to Algeria that caused the 1er REP (the first Foreign Legion parachute regiment - probably the most elite unit in the French army at the time) to involve itself in the Algiers Putsch of 1961 that accelerated the collapse of French rule in that country. The regiment was subsequently disbanded and has never been replaced.
You're right about the Germans at Dien Bien Phu, BTW. Because the vast majority of the troops there were either Legionnaires or indigenous troops in colonial units, the French were in the minority. It's often joked (but probably unlikely) that there were probably more Germans in that battle than Frenchmen because of the dominance of Wehrmacht veterans in the legion at that time. There were a number of Algerians and Moroccans as well, which is nicely ironic.
Aside to being the home of many pieds-noirs, New Caledonia's always been a major staging post for Legion garrisons in French Polynesia. Actually, while on the subject of NC, this month marks the 20th anniversary of the Ouvea hostage crisis in New Caledonia, which led to greater autonomy for the colony. Decolonisation can take a while...
...And can't colonialism can come back to bite you at home, eh what? The Algerian veterans might have been piss-poor at organising their resistance to de Gaulle, but the veterans of the Spanish campaign in the Rif went on to resent the Republic and be the backbone of the Rebel Army in the Civil War.
True! But then again, it can work the way for your Latin Fascist regime. It was of course the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement that overthrew Salazar, having become radicalised by the endless colonial wars in Portuguese Africa.
Incidentally, there' a story every bit as big as Algeria - the Portuguese evacuation of Angola. Still today the largest airlift in history. There must be a film about it somewhere. Any hints from Lusophone friends welcome!
Err, that was "it can work the *other* way for your latin Fascist regime"
And incidentally, can I just say: these are some of the finest quality comments on the blog yet!
If only you knew how much I enjoy hearing obscure details of Latin-regime colonial history.
I tell you, with Fyodor now revealing his proficiency in Francophone colonial history; Liamista's well known affinity for Guerra Civil and Spanish Moroccan minutiae, and my own humble expertise in Portuguese colonial affairs - this blog is cooking pan-Latin fringe, con gas, et avec cloches. Woo baby!
I feel a new fort series coming on.
You know, I'm going to do a New Caledonia post as well Fyodor, based on my field notes in 2004.
My understanding was that the French effectively did a Syria/ Lebanon on the joint with Matignon. It seems to me they've set up a parachute state in the South, with big numbers of Caldoche and Metros to ensure they continue to dominate even in an independent state scenario.
Of course, in the Matignon hiatus meantime, they're buying off the indedpendentists big time.
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