The Battle of Algiers

It uses realism as an effect, documentary as a style. You feel that you're really there, and you can't help but be moved.

It neither demonizes nor lionizes either side of the conflict, aiming for just-the-ugly facts objectivity. Nobody who sees it is likely to feel comforted, or even vindicated. The emotion it most frequently and fervently inspires is sorrow.

The film is not just a relentlessly gripping entertainment but also a cinematic Rorschach blot, a moral miasma that tosses our sympathies this way and that.

Essential viewing.

Both a how-to manual for guerrilla terrorism and a cautionary tale about how to fight it. It's also quite possibly the finest war film ever made.

It's a dedicated effort with importance as a 'document.'

The continued relevance of The Battle of Algiers is both a point of fascination and something to mourn.

Fifty years after its first run, The Battle of Algiers is still a cinematic stick of dynamite.

illo Pontecorvo's fictional documentary classic of the mechanics of terrorism and counterterrorism is a tense, crack thriller and one of the greatest films to draw a portrait of both sides of urban conflict.

Its content has classic and tragic dimensions beyond politics.

The film establishes a kinetic documentary effect, making the impact of every shoot-out and explosion a deeply personal experience.

This seminal. meticulously crafted work about Algiers struggle for freedom won the Venic Film Fest top award, and deservedly garnered Pontecorvo Oscar nominations as Best Director and Co-scribe.