Hors-la-loi (2010) - film review

Driven from their plot of land in Algeria to make way for French settlers, three brothers and their parents are forced to separate.  When Messaoud enlists in the French army to fight in Indochina, the rest of his family moves to the Algerian town of Sétif.  It is May 1945.  As Europe celebrates the fall of Nazi Germany, French troops are drawn into a violent confrontation with Algerians demonstrating for independence.  Along with several other militant Algerians, Abdelkader is arrested and thrown into jail.  Some years later, Abdelkader arrives in France and finds his brother Saïd and mother living in a squalid shantytown.  Whilst Saïd is busy making his fortune by arranging boxing matches in Pigalle, Abdelkader joins the movement for Algerian independence, assisted by his brother Messaoud...

Having won widespread acclaim with his 2006 film Indigènes (a.k.a. Days of Glory), a shocking exposé on France’s ill-treatment of soldiers recruited from her colonies in the Second World War, director Rachid Bouchareb came up against a barrage of censure for his controversial interpretation of the Algerian War in Hors-la-loi (Outside the Law).  This adverse reaction - which is as much reflected in the film’s dismal performance at the French box office as in the quantity of invective that flowed from the pens of some critics - has much less to do with the quality of the film and far more to do with the difficult nature of its subject.  Even today, the Algerian War of Independence arouses strong emotions in France - this was, after all, the war that was not even recognised as such by the French government until 1999.

Thankfully, the Algerian War is not the taboo subject it once was.  Long gone are the days when the French government could blithely wade in and ban a film for daring to tell the truth about the Algerian situation.   In recent years, there has been a spate of films dedicated to what was once referred to in France as la guerre sans nom.  Philippe Faucon’s La Trahison (2005), Laurent Herbiet’s Mon Colonel (2006) and Florent Emilio Siri’s L’Ennemi intime (2007) all offered uncompromising accounts of France’s far from glorious attempts to thwart Algerian independence in the 1950s and 60s.  What sets Rachid Bouchareb’s film apart is that it offers a uniquely Algerian perspective and shows, with minimal self-restraint, what it was like to be on the receiving end of French colonial aggression.  Hors-la-loi is a film that seethes with understandable resentment as it reveals the French atrocities which resulted in the creation of the FLN (the National Liberation Front, Algeria’s leading independence movement) and the prolonged period of bloodletting on both sides that finally led to Algeria gaining independence in July 1962.

The most controversial aspect of this film is its clumsy attempts to draw parallels between the FLN’s struggle against French colonialism and the activities of the French Resistance during WWII.  Rachid Bouchareb admits that, whilst preparing the film, he was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s L’Armée des ombres (1969), arguably the best known film about the French Resistance, and sought to recreate its oppressive atmosphere in his film.  There are some striking similarities between the two films - both have the ambiance of a hard-boiled American gangster film; and the FLN members in Bouchareb’s film are portrayed in a similarly heroic light as the doomed résistants in Melville’s.  The implication is that the Fourth French Republic has as much to answer for as Nazi Germany, something that, not surprisingly caused considerable offence when the film was first released in France.  If Hors-la-loi has one unforgiveable failing it is that it argues its case too strongly and comes across almost as a frenetic propaganda piece, so obviously biased and simplistic that you cannot help but question the historical accuracy of its content.

From a purely artistic point of view, Hors-la-loi has great strengths, but it also has some inescapable shortcomings.  The film’s strongest suit is its exceptionally talented cast, which is headed by the three great actors from Indigènes - Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila.  Debbouze pretty well steals the show as the unscrupulous wheeler-dealer Saïd, who turns out to be a far more complex and troubled character than his idealistic brothers, Abdelkader (Bouajila) and Messaoud (Zem).  Bouajila manages to convey the ardent fanaticism of someone who becomes consumed by a political cause but is less convincing when it comes to showing the human consequences, the inner conflict that follows when he realises the FLN must resort to terrorism to achieve its objectives.  Zem’s physical presence justifies him being cast as Bouajila’s strongarm man, although the part hardly places much strain on his acting skills.  The film’s other winning hand is Bouchareb’s assured mise-en-scène, which is at its best in the masterfully choreographed set-piece action sequences.  These not only give the film an epic feel but also powerfully convey the trauma and urgency of Algeria’s struggle for freedom.
     
Where the film falls down is in its all too obvious homage to the legendary western and gangster films (mostly of the Hollywood variety).  References to films by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather), Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York) and Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) abound and become tiresome after a while as it becomes apparent that the film is struggling desperately to find its own identity.  Bouchareb’s blatant attempt to make an Algerian version of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) is laudable but, compared with Leone’s undisputed masterpiece, Hors-la-loi lacks clarity and focus and is too lost in its disconcerting muddle of genres to be anything near as satisfying or profound.  The real value of this film is that, with a monumental lack of subtlety, it draws attention to a period of French history that is crying out for a deeper and more critical representation in cinema than it has so far enjoyed.   Perhaps now that Rachid Bouchareb has broken the ice, the Algerian War of Independence will be considered less of a no-go area and will inspire other French filmmakers to stand up and shed further light on the lengths that their country went to in order to remain a colonial power.  Something tells me they haven’t even scratched the surface...

© James Travers 2011

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