The Oscar race continues with Algeria’s contribution to the “Best Foreign Language Film” category. While I’m getting pretty bored with American films about the Second World War - or any war for that matter - this one by French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb offers something fresh as it’s told from an entirely new perspective. Where I went to school, we certainly weren’t tought that men from the French colonies in North Africa went in large numbers to Europe to fight for the “motherland”. Indigènes tells the story of a few of these men, and how they fought and died for a country that couldn’t care less about them. Unlike most Hollywood productions, which can sometimes be critical of their own government but never ever of the army itself (see my comments on This Film is Not Yet Rated), this film depicts how the Africans were considered second-class soldiers and were constantly denied even the smallest of privileges given to the other French soldiers.
The entire film is a political statement, and I can’t remember ever seeing a war film so critical of a system that is still in power. I am, of course, referring to the fact that these soldiers still haven’t received the recognition they deserve, and that those who are still alive today are still being denied their pensions that were frozen in 1959. Despite an order to pay the pensions in full in 2002, the French government has yet to make any payments to the remaining veterans. I don’t know how this film has been received in France, but I can only hope it manages to create enough buzz to make something happen. It could very well be a good start in relieving some of the frustration and alienation felt by many people of North African descent in France today.
But I digress. All politics aside, Indigènes is a very well acted and well directed film. The battle scenes are naturalistic, and the mellow Arabic-sounding music is a nice change from the pompous orchestral scores usually found in this type of film. While I don’t see this one beating Pan’s Labyrinth for the Oscar, it’s definitely a worthy nominee. A forgotten piece of European history restored.
