Bill: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Bill,

Bill: back again with another film discussion from the West.

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Bill: This week on the show, we are going to be discussing one of the greatest depictions

Bill: of revolution ever put to film, the Battle of Algiers.

Bill: It was released in 1966, written and co-directed by Guillaume Panticorvo.

Bill: It was filmed on location in Algeria and was received to glowing reviews,

Bill: winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Bill: It was initially banned in France, for obvious reasons.

Bill: The film only features several actors, primarily Jean-Martin as Colonel Philippe Matteau.

Bill: It remains one of the most important films depicting the struggles against colonialism.

Bill: With us to discuss the film tonight is my friend, Aaron, a very good close friend

Bill: of mine, real life, the real meat space. Aaron is a political organizer.

Bill: He's a fan of the show of his own admission. He's excited to be here.

Bill: He watched this film in high school. It helped radicalize him,

Bill: especially from his family.

Bill: When his father taught him about decolonization movements from a young age,

Bill: taught him about leaders such as Nkrumah, Suku Ture, Maria Cabral, and Lumumba.

Bill: As well as the Algerian War of Independence and the FLN. Aaron,

Bill: welcome to The Left to Projector.

Aaron: Hello, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be on, I'm not going to lie.

Ward: Happy to have you.

Aaron: Thanks.

Evan: Welcome.

Aaron: So, especially when I talk about this film,

Aaron: I always have to bring up the historical context because

Aaron: what we see in the Battle of Algiers

Aaron: is approximately four years of

Aaron: 130 long year colonial occupation by france and algeria and i'm going to point

Aaron: out two different like sort of events comparable events to give scale as to

Aaron: how long and how close after the independence of algeria this movie was made so,

Aaron: For how long the colonization, French occupation of Algeria was,

Aaron: we can look at the U.S. and Hawaii.

Aaron: And actually, it's scary how close it lines up because France was in Algeria

Aaron: from 1830 to 1962 and about 132 years.

Aaron: And so the Queen of Hawaii was ousted in a coup backed by the United States

Aaron: in 1893 and the islands were annexed in 1898.

Aaron: So do you want to know what year

Aaron: 132 years is from 1893 that's 2025 that would have been this year yeah.

Bill: That really yeah.

Aaron: And then that.

Bill: Really puts in perspective.

Aaron: If it was eight if you're looking at 1898 it would have been 2040 so imagine

Aaron: if you will and this is how the french viewed algeria they didn't see it like

Aaron: a colony they saw it as a state like they call it a department similar to how

Aaron: the United States views Hawaii.

Aaron: So imagine indigenous Hawaiian people starting an armed struggle and basically

Aaron: bombing resorts and, uh, uh, you know, attacking the military bases in Hawaii.

Bill: We can only wish, we could only be so lucky. We could only ask for such a thing.

Aaron: And then by 2040 or so, cause 2025 has already passed.

Aaron: They, they liberate Hawaii and then, you

Aaron: know four years later a film is made about you

Aaron: know the final final days and to give

Aaron: an even more like prescient example um we look at october 7th right and how

Aaron: close this film was to the actual battle of algiers you know from uh 56 to 60

Aaron: to the uh early 60s you know,

Aaron: If you're going off of 2023, right, the difference in time would be,

Aaron: this would be like if a movie was directed,

Aaron: from the perspective of the Palestinian Liberation Forces about October 7th and released in 2032.

Aaron: That's how close it would be.

Aaron: And that gives you kind of an idea of how just controversial and like,

Aaron: absolutely upended the political landscape in

Aaron: the 60s and you had the vietnam and i have honestly

Aaron: so much to talk about this film like for example

Aaron: in 2003 uh the u.s state the u.s pentagon actually screened this film to study

Aaron: it before the invasion of iraq because they felt it was one of the best depictions

Aaron: of both insurgency and counterinsurgency it's been studied by the ira in ireland plo.

Bill: That's an interesting point because we see you know

Bill: as as using as an example of counterinsurgency considering

Bill: the fact that you know they very point you know pointly says

Bill: at one point like oh and we will see victor despite

Bill: the fact that uh the colonel himself points

Bill: out that the in indochina they did

Bill: the same tactics and they lost there and then

Bill: what do we see in this it's like yeah they they quote unquote

Bill: win and like four years later it's algerian

Bill: independence but i i want to i

Bill: want to rewind just a little bit and do what we always do

Bill: which is talk about our everybody's experience

Bill: or their history with the start you know

Bill: and since aaron you have the most to talk about in terms of like your history

Bill: with the film i'm going to leave you for last because i know you have to have

Bill: a lot to say about that so evan ward uh either of you want to give us your history

Bill: your personal history with the

Bill: film you know how when you first saw it you know what we always do here.

Ward: I'll go first so i've seen

Ward: this movie probably like a handful of times um a couple times before i was really

Ward: political and i was like oh sick ass war movie you know didn't really think

Ward: too much about it just pretty sick war movie and then now being political it's

Ward: like god this movie is fucking great really really accurate depictions and just

Ward: what the struggle actually entails,

Ward: And I love it. And now it's to the point where I try to watch it at least once

Ward: a year, but that's still pretty, pretty relevantly new thing to me.

Evan: Yeah, for me, I've seen this maybe, I want to say like four,

Evan: four or five times, you know, maybe a handful, as you said, Ward.

Evan: I think the first time I saw it was near the time that I started.

Evan: My political ideology was drastically changing.

Evan: I was watching a lot of Soviet films and films that weren't just kind of your typical American fare.

Evan: And i just remember being struck every time

Evan: i watched this there's no portion of the

Evan: film that's more i don't know

Evan: uh just i'm just i feel like i'm like

Evan: sweating and my blood pressure is rising when they're when the three women

Evan: are planting the various bombs in the different locations my

Evan: like i feel like my heart my like my my blood

Evan: pressure is rising as probably theirs were in doing this in real life like during

Evan: the real struggle and I just think that it's such an important film that anytime

Evan: I watch it I then tell everyone else who hasn't seen it that they should watch

Evan: it regardless of your political perspective but definitely if you're on the left and it's,

Evan: I don't own it on, uh, on, uh, I do collect, you know, some physical media and

Evan: this is what I don't have the criteria collection, a copy of,

Evan: but I need to change that soon.

Bill: So this is actually, this was my first time watching it.

Ward: Oh, Bill.

Bill: Listen, this has more to do with the fact that, you know, I don't,

Bill: I don't sit down and watch.

Bill: There's certain things I just, I just don't like, you know, get around.

Bill: I, I mean, I have read about this, uh, which is relevant to this in a lot of

Bill: ways. But yeah, this was actually my first time watching it.

Bill: And one of the things that really struck me was the manner in which this contrasts

Bill: with war or like movies depicting conflict from an imperialist perspective made

Bill: by imperialist media or Western meat.

Bill: What this was in which that the, it was the way the victims of violence throughout

Bill: this film were humanized by both sides at the direction of, you know,

Bill: people who were making this film at the behest of and in celebration of Algerian independence.

Bill: And yet they still humanized the victims of violence,

Bill: the French victims of violence in a way that you don't see in Western media

Bill: when they show movies of Western, you know, military, you know,

Bill: bombing countries and, you know, murdering innocents or civilians.

Bill: And they never once even like give them any credence or any,

Bill: they pay no attention to them. They just move on.

Bill: Um, and it really struck, you know, it really stood out to me that in terms of like just the, uh.

Bill: Almost like the ideology but the core philosophy

Bill: of like humanization and how starkly

Bill: that stands in in contrast to the western ideology of just dehumanization of

Bill: anybody that isn't from the imperial core um but um now i know i touched on

Bill: it very like lightly in your introduction but you know aaron your history with

Bill: this movie and what it's meant to you i.

Aaron: First watched this when I was in high school. And this,

Aaron: I mean, my family had always talked about decolonization, but it never really

Aaron: registered in the same way before this film is after, because like everybody has said, it feels real.

Aaron: It is very real. And it, it does not glorify violence, which I think is really important.

Aaron: Neither the deaths of the Algerians nor the French, like

Aaron: you see the french stumbling and you see uh the

Aaron: paint and i want to highlight something especially important especially talking

Aaron: about the bombings uh depicted in the film um many of the cast were fln members

Aaron: during the algerian war of independence like these are not people divorced from what happened,

Aaron: and you know the actually the the the actor who plays jafar um yes of saadi

Aaron: he was one of the political his character is basically what he did during the

Aaron: battle it is based on his memoirs and so he knew Ali Lopuant he knew,

Aaron: according to.

Aaron: Algerian newspapers I saw apparently his nephew was Petit Omar you know this is not,

Aaron: this is very real to them. And especially with Ponte Corvo,

Aaron: as Bill will say, Ponte Corvo is one of my favorite directors because he absolutely

Aaron: hates using professional actors.

Aaron: He'd much rather take people from the communities that he's depicting, right?

Aaron: And you see this in the battle of algiers where the only formerly trained

Aaron: actor is jean martin as the

Aaron: colonel who's actually his character that wasn't

Aaron: a real person it's just an amalgamation of different french leaders

Aaron: but the the actor who plays ali

Aaron: la pointe uh brahim hadiji hadaji

Aaron: he is you know that

Aaron: was his first acting role pretty much and he

Aaron: didn't really become an actor afterwards like he

Aaron: did a few films afterwards but he didn't

Aaron: make it his career and ponte corvo does

Aaron: this in all his films especially one i've i hope y'all will do on the left of

Aaron: the projector kimada which means burn which has marlon brando in it by the way

Aaron: and he basically got indigenous people from columbia people who are living there

Aaron: and was like yeah this is a movie about a slave revolt on a you know.

Aaron: 16th of 17th century island in the caribbean and we want people from the caribbean here and it's.

Bill: It's a really it's a really interesting thing because you

Bill: know we we laud i mean we just had the critics choice awards and like you know

Bill: people were given awards for acting it's like we laud actors and yet these people

Bill: are not actors but as like evan you know like you said like watching that bombing

Bill: scene like that's intense acting like they brought that to life in a way,

Bill: And it's just like, you know, we, we,

Bill: We hold actors up to such, you know, in the West, like we hold them up to such

Bill: like high esteem and throughout history, you know, and, and yet these are not,

Bill: they're not trained actors and yet they brought it to life in a way that you

Bill: would think that they were, you know,

Bill: actors that have been spent, you know, decades on screen bringing characters to life.

Bill: And, and it's, you know, it's more likely because they were still,

Bill: you know, because to them, this is real, you know, or was real.

Evan: They're almost reenacting something as opposed to acting.

Bill: Yeah.

Ward: I mean, they, these aren't trained actors giving such a real performance that

Ward: there are certain American releases of this movie that had to like have a disclaimer

Ward: saying that like no portion of this film is newsreel because American audiences couldn't understand.

Aaron: And especially to like all the extras are actual Algerian people from Algiers,

Aaron: like, and they did an interview with Pontecorvo and he said he wanted to create the chorus of the Cosmo,

Aaron: right? He wanted it to feel real.

Aaron: And you hear it with the, with the, the, especially like one of the most horrific

Aaron: parts of the film, in my opinion, is when the French, uh, police commander, it's, it's, it's funny.

Aaron: Cause he's not even given a name, at least not to my knowledge in my rewatchings.

Aaron: He goes into, I don't think so. He goes into the.

Bill: Oh no, he very briefly, he's referenced like, not that it's,

Bill: this doesn't even, but he is referenced by his name.

Bill: Like when they leave that like party, which I think is important,

Bill: which is an important point.

Bill: Like that man, he is literally at like a party.

Bill: Like, and then they're just like, Oh, I'm going to leave this party where I'm

Bill: like, just like living my life. and that's like how divorced these people are from like,

Bill: their humanity in a lot of ways. Like he's at a party and he's just like living

Bill: his life and he's like, oh, we have to go bomb somebody.

Bill: Like just casually, just like, just leaves a party where they're drinking and

Bill: hanging out with kids and just playing cards and shit.

Aaron: Especially the, the noise. And it's, it's constantly referenced the chorus of the caspa.

Aaron: It's called ululation. You know,

Aaron: the, the noise the community makes is a symbol of the community pain.

Aaron: And I remember the very first time I watched it, because I had some familiarity

Aaron: with the subject matter, people were like, why are they doing this at the end of the film?

Aaron: They've only done it during periods of pain, like when it talks about the independence of Algeria.

Aaron: And it's sort of like happy that they've won, and it goes to the point of what cost.

Aaron: And that's like a constant point in the film.

Aaron: And I, one of my favorite things that I noticed on this rewatch is that Petit Omar's, um,

Aaron: first lines in the film when he makes contact with Ali LaPointe is men have

Aaron: two faces, one smiles and one cry, the other cries, which is revolution in a nutshell.

Aaron: You know, one smiles at the thinking what we, what can, where we can go,

Aaron: what heights we can achieve.

Aaron: But one face cry is seeing what's lost, all the death, the destruction,

Aaron: the pain inflicted by the occupation onto the people living there.

Aaron: And I also would like to say, you know, this is something that I thought about

Aaron: and I never really thought about before, too, in the movie, the use of the guillotine

Aaron: at the beginning, right? In the West, it's a symbol of liberation.

Aaron: But, you know, and especially as I did research on this, in a lot of parts of

Aaron: Africa, and especially in the Pacific,

Aaron: in the French colonies in the Pacific, it's seen as a symbol of brutal occupation

Aaron: and almost the exact opposite of what we think of it here.

Bill: We should probably stop celebrating the guillotine in general,

Bill: especially if you're a leftist and you understand that the French Revolution

Bill: was not a true revolution. It certainly wasn't a leftist revolution,

Bill: and it was a bourgeois revolution.

Bill: Yeah, agreed. It really does change the way it is thought about or what way

Bill: should be thought about or seen.

Aaron: I mean, I could just keep going on stuff. I, we could talk about the, um,

Aaron: in the film itself, how Ali LaPointe, and I think I saw some of the show notes,

Aaron: you know, he's not some military, like he's not some politically educated guy.

Aaron: He is the Algerian equivalent of Joe Everyman. He's been in and out of prisons.

Ward: Not even educated.

Evan: Yeah, can't read.

Ward: He's illiterate.

Aaron: Well, no, that's the thing. And I looked this up for the recording.

Aaron: At the time of the occupation, roughly 10% of indigenous Algerians were literate.

Aaron: So he is literally Joe Everyman. Like most of the men could not read.

Aaron: The people could not read.

Bill: Do we, this is never covered in the movie.

Bill: But like, how did he become involved with the FLN? like what led him to that

Bill: entirely like do we know do we have that information.

Aaron: It's it's subtext it's they it

Aaron: Jafar kind of alludes to it he's

Aaron: like oh lots of Algerians come to us in the prisons because

Aaron: a lot of FLN are in prisons and it's the same like bringing

Aaron: it full circle to Palestine like it's the same you

Aaron: know a lot of these revolutionary people are

Aaron: imprisoned and they make contact with people in

Aaron: the prison system and it's like well we got to

Aaron: prove that you know and he says this in

Aaron: the sense of like well we got to make sure you're not that works but yeah um

Aaron: and i love how the film shows that you know we'll he's like why didn't you have

Aaron: me go after the shop owner or anything else and he's like because the french

Aaron: would never risk another frenchman They would risk an Algerian person,

Aaron: but they would never allow like a French officer to come under risk.

Aaron: And it's important to note too that, you know, LaPointe is told by,

Aaron: you know, Petit Omar to just casually like assassinate him.

Aaron: He doesn't do that. He makes a big spectacle of it. He unleashes his rage.

Evan: He wants to look him in the eye, too, I think, is part of it,

Evan: right? He was supposed to shoot him in the back, but he wants to shoot him from the front.

Aaron: And not just that, too. He beats the man when it's a blank. He's like,

Aaron: oh, I don't have bullets.

Bill: Yeah, when he can't.

Aaron: Yeah. Oh, let's go.

Bill: Not even blanks. It's not even blanks.

Ward: It's just empty.

Bill: Oh, yeah.

Aaron: It's got nothing in there.

Bill: Just click.

Ward: This thing's empty.

Bill: It's got nothing in there.

Ward: It's still got some weight to it. Let me smack you with it.

Bill: Yeah.

Aaron: Yeah, and.

Bill: For those who have not seen the movie, just to like totally clarify,

Bill: what happens is that LaPointe is given the task to assassinate a French police

Bill: officer after making contact with a rat,

Bill: an Algerian rat, like a coffee shop owner, who is giving information on the FLA and resistance.

Bill: He is given the task to prove himself to the FLN. He is given the test to assassinate this officer.

Bill: So for those who have not seen, that's exactly what we're discussing is he is given that task.

Bill: And then it turns out it's all a test.

Bill: The proof is that he's not a narc. It's to prove that he is really one of them.

Aaron: It's phenomenal acting on on behalf of the uh brahim hadagi you know the actor

Aaron: who plays because you you feel his his rage and frustration you know and this is not just he's.

Bill: An intense person.

Aaron: Yeah and uh it i mean you'll see this in a lot of ponte corvo's work you'll

Aaron: see these amazing people acting in his films and then they just you try to find

Aaron: other work that they're in and they're.

Evan: Nothing else i think what what also strikes me i mean you were you're asking

Evan: bill like sort of how is laplante sort of radicalized how does he sort of get

Evan: you know um involved with the struggle and i and i think one of the things in

Evan: my notes that i kind of or in my own personal notes too is.

Evan: It's sort of like the i lost my train of thought it was like the he was right

Evan: you know he was he was not like this well-educated person that was radicalized

Evan: by reading and learning about press revolutions.

Evan: He was simply radicalized by his life on the street in a colonial empire.

Evan: The French colonial empire in Algeria.

Evan: And he is very willing, clearly, to do whatever it takes to be part of.

Evan: He obviously knows about the FLN and what they are and who they are.

Evan: And so joining them to me is simply just kind of the, I don't know,

Evan: I don't want to say like the rest is history, but you know, you live this and

Evan: you want to do something about it, you're going to find a way to join the struggle.

Evan: And then I think I put a couple of quotes from Franz Fanon from Wretched of the Earth.

Evan: And one of the quotes when he was sort of talking about the type of people that

Evan: are involved in revolutions, he says, the peasantry is systematically left out

Evan: of most of the nationalist party's propaganda, but it's obvious that in colonial

Evan: countries, only the peasantry is revolutionary.

Evan: And we can maybe decide whether that's fully accurate or not.

Evan: But I think people like LaPont are crucial to the success of these organizations.

Evan: And we see it later on, sort of post and sort of the epilogue of the film is

Evan: these guys start the revolution or start this uprising in this battle.

Evan: And while maybe they lose the battle, they're able to win like the hearts and

Evan: minds of all the people in Algiers and eventually succeed in their revolution.

Aaron: I'm really glad you brought up Fanon because Fanon, as those who've read his

Aaron: work know, was in Algeria during the struggle, the Algerian War of Independence.

Aaron: And he was so close to the FLN. He was basically like an ambassador,

Aaron: like a guy going out talking on their behalf because, you know,

Aaron: they have to go to ground.

Aaron: They can't do anything. And to speak to the just the reality of this situation,

Aaron: too, because this is another thing in my notes that I wanted to bring up.

Aaron: So for those who may not be familiar with French politics, Marine Le Pen is

Aaron: the head of this far right nationalist party, the National Rally in France.

Aaron: And her father fought in the Algerian war and he was scathing in his attacks on this film.

Aaron: He hated it. I mean, obvious, but just to give you an idea of how real this is.

Aaron: And, you know, even to this day, like between the relations of France,

Aaron: France and Algeria, like to give you an idea on December 24th,

Aaron: so like two weeks prior to this recording out the Algerian parliament passed

Aaron: the law criminalizing the glorification of the colonial regime.

Aaron: And in 2021, this is actually, this actually drove me up the wall when I heard this.

Aaron: The Emmanuel Macron said that Algerians have rewritten the history quote,

Aaron: based on a discord course of hatred towards France.

Aaron: Like that's how tone deaf and like how, how segments of the French population

Aaron: see this as like, you know, this, this lost cause sort of fantasy.

Aaron: Exactly like the confederacy like this lost cause sort of fantasy this what-if-ism.

Ward: But counterpoint everybody hates the french so like who gives a fuck what they think right yeah like.

Bill: France i mean come on,

Bill: Actually, nobody cares.

Aaron: But yeah. And, um, just progressing through the film as well.

Aaron: One thing I also really wanted to highlight is that the film does not portray that FLN is saints.

Aaron: And I think that's really important too, because, um, well, obviously like F

Aaron: the French, I don't know if I can swear on the podcast, but.

Ward: Oh, absolutely.

Aaron: You know, fuck the French. But even in terms of like what they're doing in terms

Aaron: of sort of administering Algiers, right?

Aaron: They have this cleanup campaign of like, we need to remove any potentially subversive

Aaron: elements. And what does that mean?

Aaron: That means getting rid of junkies. And it says it in the film,

Aaron: junkies, drunks, prostitution. And some of this is seen liberatory,

Aaron: you know, when Ali Laplante guns down the pimp, the brothel owner.

Aaron: But some of it is, it makes you feel a little uncomfortable when you see the

Aaron: kids, literally, there's a scene in the film where there's kids just beating

Aaron: a drunken man on the street.

Aaron: And it's, it's from the perspective of the FLN and a lot of revolutionary forces,

Aaron: you know, you can't have these elements cause they can be corrupted.

Aaron: They could be used to, to, to counter infiltrate, you know, our space,

Aaron: you know, we have to be united.

Bill: Yeah, that was a very interesting, um.

Bill: I mean, like on one hand, like criminal, like the direct criminal element,

Bill: it's like, that's kind of like on one hand, but like the like drunk,

Bill: I mean, but at the same time, it's like,

Bill: if we look at a history of the way colonial forces have introduced those elements

Bill: to a population that they are, uh,

Bill: colonizing and oppressing, you know, if we look at America,

Bill: you know, that the United States got deliberately introduced alcohol to the

Bill: indigenous population and fostered and pushed it and created a.

Bill: Chemical dependency amongst a lot of people uh in

Bill: an effort to weaken that group to some degree you

Bill: know and it's yeah it's it's hard but again

Bill: we return to like how like this like you said like they don't present them as

Bill: saints and i think that this is again like when we come back to it's like there

Bill: is a stark difference that between the left and marxists marcus marcus londonists

Bill: who call for revolution and want,

Bill: change, but we also acknowledge, nobody here, we all here acknowledge that to

Bill: have a true revolution in which we will see a better future will require violence, correct?

Ward: Mm-hmm.

Aaron: Yeah.

Bill: But do, do any of us want that? Do we, are we eager for it?

Aaron: No.

Ward: No.

Aaron: And the film shows that.

Bill: Exactly and it's like and it's the same thing

Bill: when it comes to that it's like none of them are like oh this is like great

Bill: we have to do this it's like yeah they're like another like yeah we gotta do

Bill: this it's like fuck we gotta do this now it's like fuck suck this sucks like

Bill: we don't want to have to do this and it's like if this was presented from if

Bill: this was written by what's his face the mil,

Bill: Red Dawn. What's his, I forget his name.

Ward: Milieuse.

Bill: Milieuse, yeah. If this was written by Milieuse, Milieuse would be like, oh, this is awesome.

Bill: We're going to glorify all of this violence. It's going to be great.

Bill: It's awesome. And we're going to kill the drunks. And we're going to hold it

Bill: up as a monument to moralism.

Bill: And it's such a stark contrast.

Ward: Could you imagine like seven scenes in Battle of Algiers where the Ephelon just

Ward: stops what they're doing, raises their guns up in the air and goes,

Ward: Ephelon, like Wolverine style.

Aaron: And I'm sorry. I just want to bring up two quick things. First,

Aaron: this movie actually was an inspiration partly for Red Dawn.

Evan: Yeah, unfortunately.

Bill: Which is horrifying.

Aaron: Yeah. And then number two.

Bill: Yeah, we know that. It's terrible.

Aaron: And number two is, I just want to bring up the counterpoint of the real sort

Aaron: of rallying cry moments are just people in the streets or people in the prisons.

Aaron: Like you see in the prison where the guy goes, long live Algeria.

Aaron: And the prisoners respond so vehemently.

Aaron: And it's not the French that silences them. It's the guy who says,

Aaron: we got to see if he's going to have any last words.

Aaron: We got to see him before they guillotine him. You know, we have to give him

Aaron: the chance to say his last words.

Aaron: And especially too on violence and on the glorification of it,

Aaron: it's important to really know it's, I always highlight this.

Aaron: The FLN is never the party that really drives the escalation, right?

Aaron: The, the beginning part, the, and we, they were told at the beginning of the

Aaron: film, there's been fighting in the mountains. There's been skirmishes.

Aaron: They only really attack the police and it's really only to just get their weapons.

Aaron: I don't think they even like ensure that they kill them. They just ambush them,

Aaron: steal their rifles and guns and then flee.

Aaron: But once the, and this is another scene that happens in the film,

Aaron: once the, the residential complex is bombed in the Caswa and the FLN and the

Aaron: people are angry and, you know, they see the FLN as these protectors, these civic guardians,

Aaron: you know, they're presiding over weddings. They're doing good things for the community.

Aaron: The people are like what are you going to do they just

Aaron: bombed our homes and you know jafar

Aaron: the supposed head even makes a visible

Aaron: appearance when you know by all rights that would be really dangerous for someone

Aaron: in his position and says we will avenge you don't worry we can't just storm

Aaron: the european quarter and fight them like this because we'll all die and then

Aaron: you start to see the the bombings of cafes the bombings of the airports the

Aaron: civilians so they didn't start attacking civilians.

Aaron: It's more of a rising of the escalation ladder.

Evan: Yeah, exactly.

Evan: That's a really good point. And part of, in going back even slightly further

Evan: for when Jafar meets LaPont for the first time,

Evan: and I think he's kind of, after he explains to him sort of the reason for his

Evan: test, he specifically calls out that first we have to organize and then we can take action.

Evan: And so they focus so heavily on the organization of the FLN to actually be that

Evan: support system for the community.

Evan: And as you said, it's only because of these other incidents that they sort of

Evan: escalate their violence. And I want to just read one other Fanon quote from Wretched of the Earth.

Evan: It kind of goes back to, you know, the idea of violence. And it's from just

Evan: the page three, first paragraph of the book for anyone who is reading at home.

Evan: In its bare reality, decolonization reeks of red hot cannonballs and bloody knives.

Evan: For the last can be the first only after a murderous and decisive confrontation

Evan: between the two protagonists.

Evan: This determination to have the last move up to the front

Evan: to have them clamor too quickly some say the

Evan: famous echelons of the organized society can only

Evan: succeed by resorting to every means including of course violence and so you

Evan: don't necessarily want that violence but it isn't inevitable when you have a

Evan: protagonist or a colonizer whose only method is violence so you know that's

Evan: what you end up getting and.

Aaron: Yeah and we we look at parallels today

Aaron: you know in israel palestine you know the the the cries for justice of the people

Aaron: in gaza in rafa in remote even in the west bank as well in east jerusalem you

Aaron: know we we see the the the deliberate,

Aaron: It's like Bill said, like you could, if you took off the grainy filter and, you know,

Aaron: change the architecture a little bit, you probably couldn't tell the difference

Aaron: between Ramallah or East Jerusalem and Algiers in this film.

Evan: And on top of that, as the violence starts to escalate, we see the police's

Evan: response is to essentially seal off the Arab quarter and creating,

Evan: and everyone in my notes like apartheid, like this is the apartheid.

Evan: This is Jerusalem, as you just said.

Evan: So it's forming the same structures to blockade the undesirables,

Evan: as the colonizer would say,

Evan: into a region so that they can be more easily maintained and dealt with.

Ward: Yeah, it's that escalation that we see from the colonizers first before the FLN has to respond.

Aaron: Yeah, I would say this, like, I typically divide the film into three parts.

Aaron: And when I watch it, the first part being like the sort of the organizing of

Aaron: the FLN, we see the backstories, what's going on.

Aaron: And then this is the second part, the sort of like,

Aaron: the FLN has the manpower and

Aaron: everything and to give you an idea in the

Aaron: actual like algerian war about like

Aaron: just to show how brutal it was

Aaron: i believe 1.5 million algerians died

Aaron: in throughout the course of this and

Aaron: you know it is it is a horrifically brutal

Aaron: occupation it is it

Aaron: is violent it it does not hide its

Aaron: violence it does not pretend i mean one of

Aaron: the generals who was in

Aaron: charge of the french military in algeria the real generals he even said on a

Aaron: 60 minute interview um if you don't mind give me a second to get his name he

Aaron: said on a 60 minute interview that yeah we use torture we tortured them we murdered

Aaron: people like this is what it took to keep algeria.

Bill: Matto is very he's very upfront about that. He was like, there's no, he does not like,

Bill: No bones about it. He's like, yeah, this is what you do. This is what you have to do.

Evan: He doesn't use the word torture. He basically was like, we used enhanced interrogation.

Evan: Like he used his little metaphor to make it sound or his, yeah. Anyway, sorry.

Bill: Very straightforward. It says, like, do you want to, when they have that press

Bill: conference, he says, it's like, do you want to keep Algeria?

Bill: Oh, then we got to do this. Did we have to be barbarous? We have to be monsters.

Bill: Like he's straight up just like, do you want it? Do you want it?

Bill: Then all right, this is what we're going to do.

Aaron: Yeah.

Ward: Slings you have to go to.

Aaron: And I also bring up, now that we're talking about Mathieu, I also always bring

Aaron: up, we don't see Ali LaPointe first in the film. We see Mathieu first.

Aaron: We don't see the resistance first. We see the occupation.

Aaron: We see a man being tortured. Our first thing is not to draw a parallel. This was Red Dawn.

Aaron: The first thing we'd see is an American flag and a guy with a fist raised up

Aaron: in defiance. But no, in this, the folk and it speaks to the focus of the film.

Aaron: The focus of the film is not violence for the sake of violence.

Aaron: It is about the earth, like some sort of bombastic violence,

Aaron: the way it's portrayed in Western media. But it's it's a tragic thing.

Aaron: It is something that is a last resort and people feel they have no choice.

Aaron: And also the guy is paul i don't want to attempt his name i'll sorry i'll so

Aaron: rest is i don't fucking know but this guy it's.

Bill: Okay to butcher french names remember it's okay and.

Aaron: To give you guys some context on this dude he's a real piece of

Aaron: work he went to work with the um with the brazilian um military dictatorship

Aaron: he went to work with the u.s military this is not a a guy we want to be celebrating

Aaron: by any stretch of the imagination somehow.

Evan: He lived to age 95 like all these fucking war criminals do.

Aaron: Yeah yeah,

Aaron: I just want to bring up, you know, Mathieu's first thing is about the counterinsurgency.

Aaron: He has this footage of people, random people, and he's like,

Aaron: is Algeria our enemy? Of course it's not.

Aaron: And we, the audience, are kind of like, are you sure about that?

Aaron: Because it seems like the whole of Algeria is your enemy at this point.

Aaron: And he's saying, like, we have to live with these people, but we have to be suspect of everything.

Aaron: And there's the fruit merchant who

Aaron: spills his stuff and everybody in the thing laughs

Aaron: at him but Mathieu who's portrayed as this guy who served in Indochina

Aaron: who was in the resistance and for the record the actual actor was part of the

Aaron: French resistance against Nazi Germany so even he has radical background you

Aaron: know he protested the Algerian war from metropolitan France and so which is.

Bill: It's such an interest out of everybody. Like, I know that he chose him partly

Bill: because he was a stage actor and like he wanted to keep like,

Bill: it's like, oh, he's an actor, but also he's a stage actor.

Bill: So he's not like quite as known. But the fact that he was blacklisted, as you said earlier,

Bill: for his defiance and his stance against it, like there is no part of this that

Bill: isn't thought about radically, you know, and in opposition to the empire.

Aaron: And just to highlight like because

Aaron: i love guillo pontocorvo's movies right like

Aaron: to give some context on this dude like this man

Aaron: was part of the he was part of the italian communist party in 1941 he was he

Aaron: was uh definitely like part of the resistance part of the resistance there pontocorvo

Aaron: yeah pontocorvo sorry the director

Aaron: of the film he is his politics shines through in everything he does.

Aaron: And he always makes it a point like in these films that he does to get actors

Aaron: who quote unquote, get it right.

Aaron: For those who know Marlon Brando, you know, he is a very politically active

Aaron: actor, you know, they're less savory things about the man too,

Aaron: but, um, his standing up for indigenous peoples,

Aaron: um, in the United States.

Aaron: And he's in one of Ponte Corvo's main

Aaron: movies uh kimada burn the other big

Aaron: one besides the battle of algiers and it's funny because

Aaron: on a separate side tangent columbia pictures

Aaron: offered to make a movie about you know

Aaron: like i think like uh like a dramatization

Aaron: of the sort of indian wars in the united states with uh brando and ponte corvo

Aaron: and brando refused columbia pictures because they wouldn't give political rights

Aaron: to the film to indigenous people he said i want them to have creative control

Aaron: over this film and colombia obviously said no.

Aaron: And Ponte Corvo was like, yeah, if he's not doing it, I'm not doing it.

Aaron: And the film never got made.

Aaron: But yeah. And going back to the movie,

Aaron: you know, it's like now that Mathieu has entered the spotlight,

Aaron: we see the occupation becomes even more brutal and how the FLN has to respond even more so.

Aaron: And also i just want to highlight even matthew says like id checks are pointless

Aaron: because who is going to have their papers in order yeah the resistance he's

Aaron: like this is a stupid practice i.

Bill: Love how during that whole scene they actually they show her they show one of

Bill: the women that bob like they she's right there.

Aaron: Yeah there she is.

Ward: Okay yeah no i like that too because it's like

Ward: it's very much how like

Ward: western western societies operate where

Ward: it's like okay guys let's have our hr meeting on how to

Ward: fucking be colonizers okay and it's like yeah it really churches up like how

Ward: they should be doing things but it's only in that meeting for that moment that

Ward: they talk about oh they need to do it the right way but then we immediately

Ward: see the reality is no they just got more brutal.

Evan: They were just aiming to get more permission, essentially, from France to be

Evan: more brutal during this time.

Evan: And one of the things I wrote as they were kind of showing that video of the

Evan: checkpoint is sort of like pre-surveillance state monitoring of insurgencies.

Evan: Obviously, now we have cameras and drones and AI, you know, insanity in Gaza and other places.

Evan: And they didn't have that, but they still had this understanding of how these

Evan: groups work with the sort of the pyramid structure where not everyone knows each other.

Evan: But if they can get to one person, they can get to the person above him and

Evan: slowly move their way up the chain.

Evan: Like the way that he describes their plan to the sort of people living in Algeria is, I don't know.

Evan: You may not agree with what he's doing, but it's a very well-crafted scene.

Aaron: And I just want to bring up, you know, Mathieu, he's questioned, too, by the press.

Aaron: And he says, at some point, people were like, aren't you guys being a little brutal?

Aaron: Like, aren't you guys being a little fascist-y? And he gets visibly offended,

Aaron: saying that, you know, I fought Nazis.

Aaron: If you think we're Nazis, then like, he's basically like, I'll fight you right

Aaron: here. If you think I'm a Nazi. Okay.

Aaron: And it really speaks to how close, how similar this is, how this is fascism

Aaron: and how the interfascist sort of confrontation in a sense between like France

Aaron: and Nazi Germany, right?

Aaron: It strikes a chord because you're being identified as the enemy.

Aaron: Like you're no different from them.

Evan: I mean, it reminds me also now of situations where like Benjamin Netanyahu has

Evan: had press conferences where he responds to people calling, you know,

Evan: the things that Israel is doing as related to Nazis.

Evan: And, you know, then he's, of course, like, oh, it's Hamas that are the Nazis

Evan: or the fascists or the people waving Palestinian flags.

Evan: And it's the true ironic sense of the fascist calling the people trying to protest

Evan: and, you know, free themselves.

Evan: They're apparently the fascists, you know, as depicted only by the fascists.

Aaron: And as we move through the film,

Aaron: you know, one thing I want to always bring up during to people's attentions

Aaron: to the use of lighting is really important because the Algerians never like

Aaron: not until the very end when they're desperate, don't really strike at night.

Aaron: It's always during the daytime they're in the populace but the French,

Aaron: and it's flipped are usually in the dark until the very end of the film where

Aaron: you know the final raid that we see at the beginning and at the end just another thing I thought of.

Evan: That's interesting. I hadn't, I hadn't, what do you think the reason for that?

Evan: Is it easier to get around because they have curfews in the evening for,

Evan: you know, anyone who's, you know, Arab?

Aaron: Well, not just that, but, well, I think that is absolutely a part of it,

Aaron: like in a, in a real sense.

Aaron: But when you think about it, right, like Algerians going into,

Aaron: and this actually, thank you. Thank you.

Aaron: Um, uh, Evan for, for bringing this up.

Aaron: It segues nicely into the next part of the film.

Aaron: Um, the Algerians have to be in the French spaces.

Aaron: They have to work there. They have to go there. And so they can choose whenever they want to go.

Aaron: So, and they got to blend it back into the populace as, you know,

Aaron: revolutionary movements do.

Aaron: But the French going into the Casbah is unheard of.

Aaron: Like, why would a French person go into the Algerian quarter?

Aaron: Why would you lower yourself?

Aaron: As is one of the colonizers, we see how powerful this, this ability to go between

Aaron: quarters is during the strike,

Aaron: the UN strike where the FLN says, brothers and sisters do not go to the French quarter.

Aaron: Do not open your shops. Do not do anything. uh we

Aaron: want to show the u.n what happens and

Aaron: in the real u.n vote the u.s abstained they saw

Aaron: that this the french were on their way out they were like and

Aaron: we see this like in the suez crisis which is mentioned a few times in the film

Aaron: which for those who may not know is when france and britain had their last hurrah

Aaron: in an attempt to to maintain their colonial power when And they tried to overturn

Aaron: Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal,

Aaron: working through their best friend of Israel,

Aaron: you know, and try to seize the canal by force.

Aaron: And it was defeated. And the U.S. basically scolded them and said,

Aaron: no, see, we're in charge now.

Aaron: We're the leaders of the capitalist, you know, imperialist bloc now.

Aaron: You guys don't get to make these decisions anymore.

Bill: I did find the, it really was like, it's just like, oh, look,

Bill: the UN, as useless as it is today, it was then.

Bill: The UN, a history of not doing anything for anybody being oppressed by the West.

Bill: Good for you. At least you're consistent.

Aaron: Well, the actually the really interesting thing, too, is at the beginning,

Aaron: obviously the UN is a joke now, but at the very beginning in this stage of it,

Aaron: you know, the 50s and 60s, it had a lot of weight to it because they'd just

Aaron: come out of the World War Two.

Aaron: And the US took it very seriously. They didn't veto things as much.

Aaron: They didn't try to be like the bully that they are now in the UN because they

Aaron: recognized all these countries are getting independence.

Aaron: And if they try strong earning people, they will, the Soviet Union's waiting

Aaron: with the, you know, hey, you hate these guys. And that's why they abstained.

Aaron: They saw like, if we vote in favor of France, we look horrible.

Evan: One of the other things I wanted to note, because we've brought up a few times

Evan: that the press conference and a couple other mentions of, you know,

Evan: when they're sort of putting to them, you know, oh, you know,

Evan: don't you want us to stay here? You know, obviously we need to do this.

Evan: There's something else that I found that maybe there's some like subtext or

Evan: maybe it's obvious as I'm watching it is it's very clear that the French want

Evan: to or Matteo wants to control the narrative that the press is also using.

Evan: There's sort of the moment where they're sort of outside and entering in the

Evan: press conference or they're maybe he's like leaving and they're all sort of

Evan: crowding around him asking him questions.

Evan: And it's very clear he wants them to portray this in a way where he's claiming,

Evan: oh, like, you know, unbiased, like the way you want to do it.

Evan: But it's like if you guys do your jobs, meaning for empire, the people around

Evan: the world will know what's happening.

Evan: And it's very clear that if

Evan: they lose the press and they lose the narrative as

Evan: part of this general strike and everything that's going on the the world will

Evan: change their perspective i think that's also extremely relevant to palestine

Evan: where you know maybe five years ago the national or the the global perception

Evan: of the palestinian struggle was far lower than it is now after seeing.

Evan: The genocide that Israel has committed and all of these things and seeing what's

Evan: going on and they can't hide what they're doing anymore.

Evan: And it did seem like from my reading is that the world was starting to see what

Evan: the French were doing in Algeria more than they had ever had before.

Aaron: Well, also, too, and this is mentioned a lot in this sort of press conference part of the film,

Aaron: the Battle of Dian Ben Fu had just happened and the French were absolutely routed

Aaron: in what was called Indochina,

Aaron: now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Aaron: And for those who may not be familiar like because

Aaron: this battle was so decisive this is the

Aaron: equivalent of like oh well why don't you guys have uh

Aaron: guns and we don't have the same guns and bombs and stuff

Aaron: well the vietnamese did and they trounced the

Aaron: the french and that's part of the because the pr was so bad france withdrew

Aaron: and said okay we're out we're leaving you guys win okay and And that's where

Aaron: kind of Mathieu is afraid because it's mentioned a lot that he's a veteran of the Indochina War.

Aaron: And, you know, he was at Dimdenfu and he's trying to prevent that sort of PR

Aaron: spiral of like, oh, well, we really don't have control of the situation. Maybe we cut our losses.

Aaron: And to give an idea of what's happening in metropolitan France at this point,

Aaron: this issue was so divisive.

Aaron: It brought down the Fourth Republic of France. like soldiers from algeria went

Aaron: to corsica and were basically like because they were taught debating about withdrawing

Aaron: and they were like you will withdraw over our dead bodies.

Aaron: And it almost sparked a civil war and charles de gaulle had to come out of retirement

Aaron: and was basically like okay guys you win i'm back let's figure this shit out

Aaron: and that's that's how like Because this is like when I brought up the Hawaii

Aaron: point, that's what I mean.

Aaron: This is the equivalent of like a state, like for all the bluster,

Aaron: like this less revolutionary example.

Aaron: But if Texas left the United States, like that would be the sort of psychological

Aaron: damage it would do to the U.S. psyche.

Aaron: If Alaska became independent or Hawaii became independent, there would be elements

Aaron: of people who would be like, no, I'm from here.

Aaron: And like to give a more historical perspective,

Aaron: like at the time, so as the film goes on, we might be fast forwarding a little bit in the sixties,

Aaron: France basically decided to dismantle its colonial empire in 1960,

Aaron: 1961 on its own terms, quote unquote,

Aaron: really shifting to a neocolonial model.

Aaron: And they gave independence to every territory in Africa, except for three of them.

Aaron: The first being French Somaliland, which is now Djibouti.

Aaron: The second being the Comoros, which is a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and Algeria.

Aaron: That's they gave political independence to everybody

Aaron: else except those three and to to

Aaron: give an idea i i looked

Aaron: at the populations of these places at the time you know jibouti had a population

Aaron: of 86 000 people right at the time the comoros had 198 000 people these are

Aaron: not huge like places not to say that colonialism is justified when there's small

Aaron: amount of people but You can see where I'm getting at.

Bill: You heard it here first. Baroness and Fabian. As long as, listen,

Bill: under 200,000 population, totally okay.

Ward: But Valentine.

Aaron: In Algeria, there was 11 million people, and metropolitan France had 47 million people.

Aaron: And of those 11, approximately 1.1 million were basically colonizers from France.

Aaron: Like, they would not surrender. And as the war became more desperate,

Aaron: these colonizers formed their own military organizations, their own militias,

Aaron: and basically did their own...

Aaron: Pogroms and it got to the point where even today like macron basically in the

Aaron: sort of you know macronist way said we committed war crimes in algeria and did not apologize for it,

Aaron: which is basically this is not an apology no he said this explicitly this is

Aaron: not an apology We're just acknowledging that it happened.

Aaron: And that's how this whole relationship defines. And there are still the descendants

Aaron: of these people who live there.

Aaron: I mean, there was a mass migration. They're called the Pid Noir who left after the independence.

Aaron: But a lot of them stayed and remained part of Algeria, you know,

Aaron: because they felt it was part of their home.

Aaron: And, yeah, that's why I bring up the point.

Aaron: This is not just, we see colonial, especially when it comes to Africa,

Aaron: we see, we think of the metropolitan areas as seeing this as far flung provinces

Aaron: with like, oh, we lost it.

Aaron: Oh, well, like how Britain viewed India. But this, this one was different.

Aaron: This is like how the US views Hawaii or Puerto Rico or, you know,

Aaron: to an extent, indigenous territory, uh, indigenously held territory in the United States.

Aaron: Like they would rather destroy the country than give it up for the same reason

Aaron: that we, we, we, for the same reason, you know, we say sovereignty for the Algerian

Aaron: people. they say is it not our sovereignty to keep our territory united.

Bill: It is even.

Aaron: Though it was obtained through horrific means.

Bill: It just you know i can i cannot help but anytime like seeing it it's just like

Bill: like oh we're here and it's just like go home like you it's not yours like they act,

Bill: so the attitude of presumed,

Bill: It's the entitlement. It's just a constant sense of entitlement.

Bill: It's like baked in and it just, no matter how cynical and jaded I get,

Bill: no matter how old I get and how, you know, how much time I spend on this planet watching this shit,

Bill: there's a little part of me that's still just like,

Bill: wait, like why do you think you're entitled to this? Like, where do you get off with this?

Bill: Like, you show up and you're just like yeah this is ours now it's like what

Bill: in what way why do you think that what makes you think that why do you think you're so fucking.

Aaron: Speaking of entitlement i want to bring up

Aaron: something very poignant it's about this is

Aaron: not the french this is the portuguese but the portuguese if you

Aaron: think the french were brutal based on this film the portuguese were much

Aaron: worse in angola in

Aaron: mozambique but what i really want to bring up is portugal

Aaron: used to have a province in the indian

Aaron: subcontinent called goa and the

Aaron: the indian after indian

Aaron: independence you know joe aral nehru the indian government

Aaron: said okay thanks thanks guys you

Aaron: know the rest of you also have to go france had some possessions

Aaron: in portugal so france i i'm not

Aaron: as familiar with how france left uh they called it

Aaron: pondicherry but in goa portugal was

Aaron: like what do you mean go this is

Aaron: our this is a state this is a part of portugal like we

Aaron: will fight you to the bitter end and they all

Aaron: they tried to call in like nato over this

Aaron: and they said nato like our our sovereign territories being attacked back us

Aaron: up here and that's where the the corollary of only territories north of the

Aaron: tropic of cancer will be defended because they're not the u.s was basically

Aaron: like we're not defending your colonial empires.

Aaron: This is stupid and.

Bill: You're going to.

Aaron: Give up doha to india.

Bill: I mean and that's it we have to that is most likely a political choice on the

Bill: part of the u.s with like this would serve us very well if their colonial uh

Bill: properties you know we're not defended there's no way.

Aaron: Yeah and to go back to the film i want to bring up as the strike is going on

Aaron: um at a certain point at the end of the strike Like when the conflict heats up,

Aaron: they capture a guy, Ben Meadie.

Aaron: This is the guy with the glasses and handcuffs in the press conference with Mathieu.

Aaron: And I just want to bring up a really quick thing. Because in the film,

Aaron: and this was a real controversy in French-Algerian relations,

Aaron: one of the reporters asks, you know,

Aaron: well, this is after when news of his death arrives.

Aaron: And one of the reporters is like, so we know you keep FLN prisoners bound.

Aaron: And you're telling us he ripped up his shirt and hung himself. Like, how?

Aaron: And it took until Macron's presidency recently to admit, yes,

Aaron: French paratroopers killed Ben Midi.

Aaron: That's how long it took for france to basically talk about this and and say

Aaron: things about this you know.

Bill: Yeah that felt very uh epstein coded

Bill: like there was a media came to

Bill: i was like oh this is epstein like this is an epstein moment like this is you

Bill: know one day we're gonna come back to this and it's gonna be well maybe i don't

Bill: you know but i i definitely i would like you to talk more about uh the media

Bill: like the the real life individual that he you know,

Bill: and you know like his his position exactly you know um and like what you know his role was.

Aaron: So to give you all an idea, like a lot of the, we don't, we see very little Ben Meadey in the film.

Aaron: But he is part of like the executive committee of, because the FLN is not just

Aaron: in Algiers, as they reference in the film, they're in the mountains,

Aaron: they're in the deserts, they're everywhere.

Aaron: And he was part of the leadership committee in Algiers at the time.

Aaron: And so he is one of the political heads, one of the political and military heads in Algiers.

Aaron: So he's pretty much the equivalent of an Ali Leprunt, a Jafar in terms of rank

Aaron: and influence amongst the people.

Aaron: And you know he was captured in the same way that and he was more politically.

Aaron: Radicalized like he had more formal education than Ali LaPointe he went to a

Aaron: French school he was more but he,

Aaron: He's seen as a hero to the Algerian people. The same as Ali Leprante, the real man.

Aaron: Like, there's statues of him throughout there. The same as Petit Omar.

Aaron: These are all real, like, especially the FLN people, are usually real people.

Aaron: And if they're not, like Jafar, they're played by the people they're supposed to be acting as.

Aaron: Because you're not going to have Yosef Sadi, the guy who's the actor,

Aaron: being like, yeah, I'm Yosef Sadi. I'm also playing myself here.

Aaron: You know, they had to give them a different name, but yes.

Aaron: So Ben Meadie was, was captured and they, they did the interview and everything.

Aaron: And everyone is like, basically the French were like, Oh, we don't know.

Aaron: We don't know what happened. You know, we, we, he, he was alive one minute. He was dead the next.

Aaron: And that's pretty much their, their sort of position on the thing.

Aaron: They tried repeatedly to do it to because this would be like and guess who was in his guess who was,

Aaron: who had custody of him before he died our good friend Paul I was sorry whatever

Aaron: his fucking name is that guy who went to Brazil like the this is the level of

Aaron: brutality of it and people were saying that you know.

Aaron: Everyone, one, Islam, he's a devout Muslim man, and Islam is very clear about

Aaron: not committing suicide.

Aaron: And two, like it says in the film, most of these people, given the chance, would rather flee.

Aaron: They're not going to kill themselves because they see, but they know they'll have a chance.

Aaron: Like, if they can just get that one chance to escape, to go back to the struggle, they'll do it.

Aaron: You know like and we see that like literally in the

Aaron: first in the opening of the film that the guy who is

Aaron: literally crying crying out free algeria which

Aaron: honestly if you take out algeria and you put in palestine i

Aaron: would not it would sound so prescient to today like roaring through the prisons

Aaron: roaring through the streets of the old city roaring through this all of all

Aaron: of historic Palestine and so.

Aaron: He's a very influential figure. We could talk a lot about him,

Aaron: but I especially want to talk about, you know, as the film, the post-climax

Aaron: of the film, you know, when we see the net closing in on Jafar,

Aaron: on Ali LaPrente, and Mathieu's strategy is working, right?

Aaron: And this is also why counterinsurgents love to use this film.

Aaron: They're like Matthew's thing of like the cell structure is what organizations

Aaron: use, revolutionary organizations use.

Aaron: In places like Vietnam, it's mentioned like people from the IRA in Ireland, the PLO in Palestine.

Aaron: This is revolutionary science, as best the word can describe.

Aaron: And we see the net closing in and we see how people react differently to this.

Aaron: And this is where they start attacking at night, like with the ambulance and

Aaron: where the strategy is kind of lost a little bit because everything is dying around them.

Aaron: But as the movie tells us, you know, everything, it's not dead and buried, but it is struggling.

Aaron: And it's important to know you know sadi yosef

Aaron: was was captured and the same fucking

Aaron: general the same asshole the real life

Aaron: general said that oh like trying to

Aaron: disparage the memory of the

Aaron: man said oh he betrayed ali la point he was our

Aaron: informant when you know there are historians who say no that that doesn't track

Aaron: at all like this is this makes no sense and you know we see how different people

Aaron: are responding differently like some are are going out you know to the.

Aaron: The French are blasting over the air raids. Imagine hearing this,

Aaron: like your comrades, like where he's like, um, Simurad, Jafar,

Aaron: all of them have been captured and just listing all the people.

Aaron: And, you know, the guys who hear that, and I'm talking about the scene where,

Aaron: they're like, we need a letter of a fair trial from you, Mathieu.

Aaron: We want to make sure that our rights will be respected. And they basically use

Aaron: it as time to prep, you know, a bomb.

Aaron: And we see you know there are

Aaron: people who just will not be taking and another another quick thing uh because

Aaron: we i kind of uh sped past that a little bit um also the sacrifices especially

Aaron: of the algerian women cannot be underestimated the fact that like such a the veil the veil the

Aaron: hijab is such an integral part of their identity and

Aaron: they shed it in the sake of for the fight of revolution

Aaron: to look french to take on the visage of

Aaron: the colonizer such a powerful scene and it shows the length that they'll take

Aaron: for freedom to to basically sacrifice their culture for others and and i saw

Aaron: especially poignant where jafar talks to the elderly woman who is less French

Aaron: looking, quote unquote, whatever that means.

Aaron: And she's like, I need to be part of this. I'll bring my son.

Aaron: We will make it work. That's how driven these people were.

Aaron: And the brave women and people who.

Aaron: Were in this in the struggle and you

Aaron: know for i also want to bring up because sometimes people

Aaron: poo-poo the film about oh it uses child soldiers like

Aaron: look at petit omar and i kind of

Aaron: push back at that because occupation touches every part

Aaron: of life and so they don't

Aaron: give him a gun and send them to the to to go kill

Aaron: french people they use him in roles that they know subversive roles like passing

Aaron: information like i love the political intelligence when he takes the microphone

Aaron: during the checkpoint and he's like the fln has not forgotten you we will win

Aaron: we will we will survive this i.

Bill: Think that that is a especially in the west that is a a um often used it's similar

Bill: to the um The excuse that, you know,

Bill: Israel uses like human shields and it's like, it is both a...

Bill: Tacit like admittance of

Bill: the actual like criminality and the

Bill: barbary barbarity of the west and how

Bill: like how they use that as an

Bill: excuse while simultaneously continuing to

Bill: do things that put those people put people

Bill: in positions they claim are human shields which

Bill: is not true um but they're still going

Bill: to do whatever they claim you know do um and

Bill: then the idea that like also like people don't

Bill: treat children as humans with

Bill: like full life experiences that with

Bill: agency exactly they don't treat them as if

Bill: they are full people with their

Bill: own minds and thoughts and who have been

Bill: affected by things it's as if they they act like

Bill: because somebody is a because a person as a child

Bill: they are incapable of

Bill: understanding things or being impacted by

Bill: like they they take the notion of western childhood

Bill: and apply it to you know and in the west childhood is treated as basically like

Bill: a bubble it's like they're just totally insulated from everything and they just

Bill: take this like naive presumption and apply it to like a child like petite omar

Bill: who is his circumstances are.

Bill: Vastly different than the average child on the streets of you know new york

Bill: city you know or in the suburbs or anywhere within the you know like it's just wildly different.

Aaron: It is this mentality of segregating adult things yeah and child things like

Aaron: i i mentioned i grew up learning politics

Aaron: in my in my in my household growing up if

Aaron: you if you weren't sharp on

Aaron: your politics you would get clowned on even as

Aaron: a kid and you know that's that spoke to

Aaron: how my parents obviously we're not literally treating they're not

Aaron: literally treating people as kids as adults but like they're

Aaron: not infantilizing them you know saying oh you're

Aaron: too young to understand this like no you need to

Aaron: understand we are under occupation and

Aaron: some children they they chose like petit omar

Aaron: in this too and so it's important to make that distinction versus like the often

Aaron: characterized depiction in western media of oh we're just giving this like 10

Aaron: year old boy a rifle which is the fln would not do that which is done totally.

Bill: For shock value and as a means of ginning up response from the population that you're looking to,

Bill: basically manufacture consent with that's why they do that that's why they make those claims.

Aaron: Exactly and so as the film closes

Aaron: we see the net closing on ali la plant and

Aaron: i want to bring up he does not at no

Aaron: point in the film is he like fearing for his

Aaron: life he's like oh i'm like he knows how

Aaron: this ends on some level like you

Aaron: you see the determination in his face he's not afraid

Aaron: to die yeah exactly and what really

Aaron: speaks to the character and i like this in the portrayal is

Aaron: he gives no qualms to anyone who wishes to

Aaron: surrender he says if you choose to to

Aaron: leave and also i love just as a side note

Aaron: in terms of filmmaking the the the chekhov's

Aaron: gun of making the the wall like hide

Aaron: out and because we saw it at the beginning and we see them making

Aaron: it and it's like oh we know this is coming back oh yeah we know how this ends

Aaron: and he says to the woman there when he's basically talking to what's left of

Aaron: the fln in algeria from from our perspective he's like if you want to surrender

Aaron: that's okay you you can go and he says but i'm not going.

Aaron: And like the real Aledepunt, like the real person, he dies. He dies fighting.

Aaron: And he is seen as a martyr and a symbol of the Algerian defiance.

Aaron: And one thing I really, really absolutely want to highlight is after they blow it up and he dies.

Aaron: And not to mention, and also I just want to make a quick side note. in this

Aaron: in the real life version of this i believe 16 other people died

Aaron: so it's not just he died and they

Aaron: just got him this this kills many other

Aaron: algerians um there's a french soldier saying you know what what do we do now

Aaron: we've we've won right and he's like oh we've gotten along for 130 years before

Aaron: this and even that is just a whitewashing of the history because if you look,

Aaron: Like even if you just do a cursory look at the Wikipedia page of colonial Algeria,

Aaron: French Algeria, you'll see there are rebellions.

Aaron: Throughout the history of the thing it's not what we got along that's from your

Aaron: perspective from their perspective it's like okay this attempt may not have

Aaron: succeeded but we will try again.

Bill: Yeah it's it's it always comes back to that it's like that that notion of that

Bill: the colonizers notion of it like you know um well it didn't affect me so we got along fine.

Ward: Yeah back to.

Bill: Brunch i've been benefiting i've been.

Aaron: Benefiting we got.

Bill: Along fine it's been it's been great it's been you know it's been wonderful

Bill: i love it it's you know meanwhile.

Aaron: I can't help but bring up the hawaii example like

Aaron: imagine if something like this happened in hawaii how many

Aaron: americans would say oh well i mean hawaii was like what's

Aaron: we've never had issues here yeah like indigenous

Aaron: hawaiians what are you what are you talking about like while

Aaron: hawaiian people and i've met hawaiian people who stand by

Aaron: their culture and someday wish to

Aaron: to be free there to see their kingdom restored you know this is not some distant

Aaron: thing for them and it's really important to talk about the ending of the film

Aaron: because the ending of the film is the most Beautiful way to encapsulate it because

Aaron: it doesn't just say, oh yeah, but the Algerians won. Hooray.

Aaron: No, it shows them like, and it's so beautiful because it says,

Aaron: oh, everything was quiet.

Aaron: And then everything just erupted. Like we don't understand.

Bill: Again, it returns to like, I thought we were fine. Like everything's fine.

Ward: Was it not business as usual? I thought we were back to business as usual.

Aaron: And then we get this amazing scene. And I love the description of the Algerian

Aaron: flag is, you know, the star and crescent on a green and white background.

Aaron: And they're like, they just tore bedsheets.

Aaron: They took whatever cloth they could find and made a flag out of it, out of defiance.

Aaron: And in those protests in 1960, hundreds of people died.

Aaron: A lot of people died. but they refused to to surrender and it it culminate and

Aaron: it it's it's not some like,

Aaron: bombastic thing like a red dawn sort of like we fought them off at the end it

Aaron: is it is a very somber thing that it says you know after years of struggle algeria

Aaron: is finally independent in 1964 There's no great glorification.

Aaron: The film recognizes the sacrifices of all the people throughout this film and

Aaron: throughout revolutionary struggle.

Aaron: Revolution cannot glorify violence. It accepts that it's necessary in its places and times.

Evan: There's one quote I wanted to bring up that we kind of went past this before,

Evan: but I think it's relevant to the end of the film and sort of you don't see into

Evan: the future. It doesn't give you the post.

Evan: Again, it only was filmed in 1966.

Evan: But I believe this is when the conversation with Lepland, he is being told sort

Evan: of, or educated, I guess you could say.

Evan: And I'm blanking now on the character.

Aaron: Oh, Ben Meade.

Evan: Yes, Ed Meade.

Aaron: Ben Meade.

Evan: He says, um, it's hard enough to start a revolution, even harder to sustain

Evan: it and hardest of all to win it. It's only after the revolution,

Evan: only after we've won it, that's the real difficulty begins.

Evan: And I think it's like a very poetic way to describe sort of the ever so difficult

Evan: nature of each step in the way.

Evan: And you see throughout the film as sort of like the organization and the start

Evan: of the revolution, but you don't really see the end of it.

Evan: But the way they depict the end of it is, as you said, it's just a beautiful

Evan: way to kind of show the culmination of their efforts.

Aaron: And yeah like your point is absolutely

Aaron: right about the this is where the real work begins

Aaron: and i love that quote you know because when

Aaron: you look at algeria like the referendum to to give independence i said 62 64

Aaron: sorry it's 62 um first 99.72 percent of the people voted for independence So

Aaron: it was pretty much unanimous.

Aaron: But, you know, there you look at the history after the fact and you see like

Aaron: literally the first thing you see on the I pulled up the Wikipedia page because

Aaron: I can't like actively look for sources right now.

Aaron: But the first thing after independence is the 1965 coup.

Aaron: Right. Like literally a few years later, there's political struggles like this

Aaron: is the real work of figuring out a real Algeria.

Aaron: What do we do with the Pinot, the French who choose to stay?

Aaron: You know, what do we do about the inhomogeneity of Algeria? You know,

Aaron: Algeria is not just Arabs.

Aaron: There are Berbers and Tuaregs and other ethnic groups here. Like, how do we build a state?

Evan: And there's multiple parties within Algeria. Like the FLN isn't the only,

Evan: you know, the only party.

Evan: There's the Communist Party there. I think the.

Aaron: Exactly.

Evan: The, I don't know what, I don't know what the initials are, but like the national

Evan: movement, you know, those are, which I think was founded by,

Evan: I actually don't have it open at the moment.

Aaron: I think it's disaffected people from the FLN.

Evan: Yeah, probably right. Exactly.

Bill: Split. Split.

Aaron: Yeah. And this is the difficulty. I mean, we see revolutionary projects like,

Aaron: you know, Cuba, China, Vietnam and say and think, oh, yeah, look at it. There you go.

Aaron: That's it. But we what we like, I love the quote of like, you know,

Aaron: they talk about the failures of socialism, but look at the failures of capitalism

Aaron: in Somalia and in, you know, Afghanistan and all these places.

Aaron: But, you know, we also have to look at, you know, the struggles post-revolution

Aaron: of a lot of these societies because, you know, these revolutionary movements are not homogenous.

Aaron: You know, they're not just one hive mind operating, you know, as one mind, right?

Aaron: People have different opinions and they put aside those opinions for the sake

Aaron: of the independence struggle.

Aaron: But what happens when that unifying force is gone?

Bill: It really makes me think of, and this was in reference to something completely

Bill: different, but Ward and I were discussing the other day, a completely different thing.

Bill: And how Ward said, you know, how it's like, how liberals hate leftists because

Bill: leftists are unwilling to just gloss over things.

Bill: How we're going to point out that it's not real, that you have to confront the

Bill: difficult parts, that you can't just gloss over it. You have to confront it. And like...

Bill: In a world in which we watch media, which co-ops revolutionary struggles,

Bill: like we are fed it by the state.

Bill: Watching this is such a profound difference.

Bill: There is no glossing it over. There is no hand-waving it away.

Bill: There's like, no, this is what it is. this is

Bill: a lesson you need to learn we are

Bill: going to give you it in a movie but this

Bill: is a lesson you need to learn if you want to

Bill: see successful struggle against things you

Bill: need to take this seriously you need to really move forward with this and you

Bill: can't gloss over things you can't ignore things because it makes you feel uncomfortable

Bill: because you don't like it you can't You have to take care of it.

Bill: You have to struggle with it. You have to internalize it.

Aaron: Yeah. I agree 100%, Bill. And for my own personal experience with this film,

Aaron: my fiance, ironically, when we started dating, this is months ago.

Aaron: Into our relationship i was like you need to watch this movie to understand like how i see the world,

Aaron: because i can't not see the world through this lens and this is the easiest

Aaron: way to show you i mean i could go all the live long day about books and like

Aaron: theory and things like that but what is more impactful than watching the brutality

Aaron: of a colonial regime before your eyes,

Aaron: presented in such graphic detail and you know it basically forces you to confront

Aaron: it and i want to bring up a comparison i don't i i there's a lot of episodes

Aaron: of left of the projector i don't know if y'all have covered this movie the patriot

Aaron: you know with mel gibson and all them,

Aaron: and and it's i always because i mean,

Aaron: I hate, it's my, as a leftist, it's my guilty pleasure movie.

Aaron: I enjoy the filmmaking, the making of the movie, blah, blah, blah.

Aaron: But I contrast that quote unquote revolutionary film with the Battle of Algiers.

Aaron: How Mel Gibson is portrayed as this mythic, heroic figure and everything falls on him.

Aaron: Whereas in the Battle of Algiers, yeah, we know Ali LaPante,

Aaron: but we don't know. we we've we get only get passing lines about the rest of

Aaron: the people but they're so integral.

Bill: I think that you

Bill: are not giving those other people enough credit like

Bill: like not that i'm not giving them enough credit but like

Bill: i honestly don't think the film puts that much

Bill: more on ali than jafar like

Bill: the other ones like really like they don't

Bill: there is no like the only reason LaPont is given like any kind of like even

Bill: like I feel like any more like slightly it's just because like he's the audience's

Bill: like he's the audience's proxy but the way it is presented is very much like he's not,

Bill: He's not the hero. He's not, you know, he's not great man. There's no great

Bill: man theory in this at all. Yeah, no. It's not present.

Ward: I really like that too. It's very matter of the fact, like cutting through and

Ward: it's like, there's parts of the whole film where it's like cut like a newsreel

Ward: where it's like this day, this day, this day.

Ward: And it's not like anything like the Patriot, like how you mentioned where it's

Ward: like, oh, his personal relationships.

Ward: Let's get you invested as the viewer emotionally into this person and his family.

Ward: So that that way he seems more righteous when he does things.

Ward: And there's none of that. It's just very matter of fact.

Aaron: I apologize for not correctly conveying this, but like, I agree with you, Bill.

Aaron: Like, and that's sort of what I meant. There's so many characters,

Aaron: so many Algerian characters.

Aaron: And yes, we get, you know, Petit Omar, we get Jafar, we get Ali LaPointe as

Aaron: our sort of like pseudo main characters of the thing. but how many different

Aaron: men and women are active?

Aaron: Like we never really get a name of the guy from the beginning of the film.

Aaron: The first Algerian we see.

Bill: God, that, we don't, man, that is, oh, that's a rough scene.

Bill: And you start off with that.

Bill: You cut the tear, the whole thing.

Aaron: The horror of just seeing literally the, the, the torture sequences.

Aaron: And I will say there is like a, I think there's a version of the film without

Aaron: it when it was first released because it was so graphic for audiences of the day.

Aaron: I mean, now with the hyper violence of today, you know, I fear people have become

Aaron: desensitized, but when it's portrayed like this, it shocks you.

Aaron: Like when they put the electric clamps on the guy, when they have the guy curled

Aaron: up on like a bar and like, like it is.

Aaron: And they drop and they like do the forced drowning of people.

Aaron: Like they do horrific things to these people.

Aaron: And I, I, the, the, the film, it needs to do that. You need to reconcile.

Aaron: Like Matthew said, if you want Algeria, this is what it will take.

Aaron: And thank, God, the French didn't push any further.

Aaron: Yeah.

Bill: Apology not accepted.

Aaron: But yeah, but this, this film is, is especially relevant in this day and age.

Aaron: Cause I know one thing in the show notes was about Venezuela and it's so poignant

Aaron: to talk about because if you want the fruits of empire, this is what it takes to maintain empire.

Aaron: Like like matthew said like you know

Aaron: if you want to keep all the the happy you know privileges of being a superpower

Aaron: and there are no privileges for the working class let's get that straight um

Aaron: it's for really the ruling class it's it's like well you got to deal with this and just like how,

Aaron: maduro was unjustly and viciously kidnapped from his home country you know like

Aaron: we're dealing with the fallout today like like how the,

Aaron: bill said you know oh the tendency to

Aaron: gloss over things like no like we've we've entered a new phase of of history

Aaron: we've entered a new phase of of relations between countries the same way in

Aaron: algeria algerian independence the end of decolonization it's just the world

Aaron: keeps spinning and you know did.

Evan: You have any last uh last thoughts or anything you uh didn't get to.

Aaron: Oh yeah well one quick thing i i'm

Aaron: gonna officially start this and i'm gonna comment on every video

Aaron: y'all post but do kimada do more

Aaron: of ponte corvo's work bill knows this

Aaron: i have been ranting at him to watch more

Aaron: of this dude's work because it is honestly phenomenal

Aaron: um i wanted to thank y'all

Aaron: all for having me and to share

Aaron: my love of this film you know i i love film it's

Aaron: one of the best ways to convey political feelings

Aaron: because you know a picture is worth a thousand words like the ability

Aaron: to to show revolutionary struggle and

Aaron: not just read about it but see it from people who

Aaron: were there who were participants and it

Aaron: especially because the movie is made is

Aaron: the script was written by uh yes of saadi the

Aaron: guy who plays jafar who was one of the political heads

Aaron: of the fln during the

Aaron: battle of algiers he was there he was basically doing

Aaron: what jafar was doing and so to

Aaron: it's it's so powerful like one one can't even call it acting in the same way

Aaron: we call acting in movies here because acting in like a DiCaprio movie is pretending

Aaron: to be someone. These people aren't pretending.

Aaron: This is what they live for.

Bill: It's funny you mentioned DiCaprio considering what he just won a bunch of awards for.

Evan: Well, I think what you did do, Aaron, actually, is volunteer to return to do

Evan: another Pontecorbo film.

Aaron: Oh, I will absolutely. If y'all ever want to have me come back,

Aaron: I will. I love talking about movies. Bill knows.

Evan: I haven't seen Bird, and I've heard of it, and I almost feel like,

Evan: yeah, I need to see that very soon.

Aaron: If you think there were good quotes in this movie, that movie is just completely,

Aaron: it will drown you in great revolutionary quotes.

Aaron: Like, it is such a good film. And the guy, I gotta look him up.

Aaron: I gotta do him justice. Like I want to, I want to explore, I want to just show,

Aaron: um, how just antithesis of, uh, actor he is.

Aaron: Uh, if you'll bear with me for a second, um, the man is named,

Aaron: he plays the, the, like, like we've discussed, there's no like titular characters.

Aaron: There's no traditional protagonist, but his name is Evaristo Marquez and he

Aaron: plays the character Jose Dolores.

Aaron: And just to go off his Wikipedia page, before being involved in the film.

Aaron: Like this is just from his Wikipedia page, so take it with a grain of salt.

Aaron: He was a herdsman and illiterate and he was approached, he was in three movies,

Aaron: I think it was like extras after the film.

Aaron: Um, but he was his, you see, you think of that and then you watch the movie

Aaron: and, you know, Marlon Brando talks about how, how much he loved working with

Aaron: him, how, how great he was.

Aaron: And he basically said, like, he was, they tried to make him into a,

Aaron: like, they tried to get him in movies and he went back to being a herd, a herdsman.

Aaron: Like that is the character of this man's films. And there's actually a documentary,

Aaron: a return to Algiers that Ponte Corvo did decades later about the filming of the battle of Algiers.

Aaron: So if you want me back, I haven't seen that.

Evan: So this is sort of unrelated, but just, I thought would be like a nice bow in

Evan: the 1966 Academy Awards battle of Algiers was nominated for best international film.

Evan: It lost to a french film and i just i feel like that's just like a sorry guys you are not gonna slap.

Ward: In the face.

Evan: And it's also the only film to ever be nominated for academy awards in three

Evan: consecutive academy awards it was nominated for the feature film in 66 i think

Evan: uh screenplay in 67 and then best director in 68 which is crazy didn't win any of them.

Aaron: Yeah no it that the battle of Algiers has been absolutely mistreated by the

Aaron: academy. But then again, we're working class people.

Bill: Yeah.

Aaron: What do we care about?

Evan: The academy is a joke. we, we, I.

Ward: Only care if we can use it to talk shit.

Bill: Yeah. Exactly. But like earlier tonight, I was talking about the house sinners

Bill: got just absolutely shafted.

Bill: And Jackie's like, I've, she's like, you never care about this stuff.

Bill: I'm like, I only care because sinners got shafted.

Bill: I don't give a fuck. I'm mad because I love this that's it I'm only because

Bill: of that movie that's all like I.

Aaron: Well, you got to tell Jackie, this is fueling my fire right here.

Aaron: I already hated the Academy. This is just giving me more reasons to hate me.

Bill: Yeah, exactly. I'm so fucking-

Aaron: Why are you trying to rain on my hate parade?

Ward: Also, I love Andor. So anytime Andor loses to Severance for the pit,

Ward: I put off watching those shows for several months.

Bill: Severance is good. Severance is good.

Ward: Well, it needs to stop winning over Andor or else I'm never going to watch it.

Ward: The ticker just keeps adding.

Aaron: Yeah i'm i'm grateful you all gave me the opportunity to be here i'm always

Aaron: willing to come back uh bill knows how to hit me up maybe i'll get a yeah maybe

Aaron: i'm a ghost actually i'll tweet.

Bill: But that's like it's like how at the end when it's like a hot word how do you know joy.

Aaron: Maybe next time I'll get an actual camera so you all see my face.

Evan: All good well Aaron I really appreciate you uh coming on and talking about this

Evan: always important and also incredible film so much.

Aaron: Appreciated yeah absolutely this was great having me yeah.

Evan: And uh Bill and Ward we will uh catch everyone next time on left of the projector.

Bill: Have a good night, everybody.