Opium and the Stick (1970)
In 1950, in Algeria, in a village in Kabylia, Algerian resistance fighters resisted the French occupation army. Bachir returns to the village to escape the clashes ravaging Algiers. In Thala, he has two brothers, Ali and Belaïd. The first is engaged with the ALN (The National Liberation Army) and fights against the colonizer. His second brother, Belaïd, the eldest, is convinced of a French Algeria. His family torn apart, Bachir decides to join the war and takes sides against the repression of the French army. The French army is trying in vain to turn the population against the insurgents by using disinformation. The more time passes, the more the inhabitants of the village and surrounding areas, oppressed, rally to the cause of the FLN, their houses and their fields will be burned... Adaptation to the cinema of the eponymous novel Opium and the Stick, published in 1965, by Mouloud Mammeri, the film was dubbed into Tamazight (Berber), a first for Algerian cinema.
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Great Film overall
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Blistering performances.
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
What a true masterpiece speaking of a war that very few movies have talked about. War in Algeria which France is not so proud of, if you compare the USA and the war in Vietnam. I only remember Yves Boisset's RAS and Florent Emilio Siri's L'ENNEMI INTIME, actually french productions to find any accurate and fair point of view about this horrible war. OK this one I talk about today is an Algerian film, with some french actors, but it is very powerful, describing the facts as they really occurred. The french authorities repression in the villages, the use of napalm and other atrocities. Some weird editing, where no real lead remains. The story focuses on some characters, for instance Jean-Louis Trintignant - the french deserter - or the Young Arab rebel, and then they suddenly almost disappear...Weird, but why not? A powerful gem from Algeria available on you tube video and old VHS tapes. And only there. Unfortunately. The director already gave us a TV movie that I commented five years ago: C'ETAIT LA GUERRE. Worth too.