The Battle of Algiers - Essay Example

Just as in the film, the violence, which we have seen arise periodically between Muslim immigrants and French-born people since the 1970s – perhaps even earlier – begins with bias, racism, disenfranchisement of one people while favoring the well being, rights and dignity of another people. In the film, as in France, this is French nationalism and Muslims. The Battle of Algiers opens with the arrest and incarceration of a Muslim – a petty thief, taking advantage of people with an age old card game.

The man, Ali, who is illiterate, experiences an epiphany of sorts during his incarceration. He is witness to the execution of a man who as been arrested, marched through the prison calling out “Ala Akbar,” (God is great), and is being led to his execution by French police. At this point in the film we do not know why the man has been arrested, it doesn’t matter, because the man’s execution is by guillotine, a gruesome and archaic death sentence that is unthinkable when you reconnect to the fact that the film is during the 1950s!

It is unimaginable that during that time people were put to death in that way. This serves as Ali’s epiphany, and following the execution, Ali spends time with a religious man, who explains to Ali his connection to God and to his country. That one day, the Algerians will retake their country from the French. While French Muslims are not attempting to take France from the French, we see the French reacting to French Muslims in an equally biased and hateful way as they during the colonial period in Algeria.

(Keep in mind, the uprising in the film was during the 1950s to 1960s). The violence that exploded in France, outside of Paris, in late 2005-2006, is almost the way the film opens; a response to disenfranchisement. Other images in the film are strikingly familiar to events in today’s world. The execution of the Algerian prisoner by guillotine, an archaic and horrific manner in which to execute a death