Film Review
Of all of the subjects that a French filmmaker might be tempted to broach
in the 1960s and '70s none was more taboo than the Algerian War. At
the time, the state censor was no more than an agent of the French government,
and the government line was that this great colonial escapade was strictly
off-limits as far as public criticism went, in whatever medium. Jean-Luc
Godard was one of the first filmmakers to test the mettle of the censor with
Le Petit soldat (1963), but
his exposé of French torture in Algeria proved to be a flaming red
rag that resulted in the film's immediate ban. Ten years on, French
censorship was as unbending as ever over the Algerian question, even though
the war was long over and Algeria was now an independent state. So
when René Vautier served up his own characteristically out-spoken
critique of the war he was not dealt with kindly by the censor. In
fact, he was denied a visa for the film's distribution and this led him to
resort to a hunger strike in January 1973 to get this decision overturned.
By this stage in his career Vautier was Enemy Number One as far as the French
censorship office was concerned. A militant polemicist of the most
virulent kind, he had gained a high profile in the 1960s with a slew of films
that appeared calculated to antagonise the French establishment. (Most
of these ended up being destroyed by the censor.) Particularly forceful
were his heated assaults on French colonialism, although he drew just as
much critical fire with his rants against racism, pollution and female exploitation.
He was twenty when he was sent to prison for his short film
Afrique 50,
which dared to depict life as it really was in a West African village.
With
Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès Vautier must have known he
was skating on very thin ice - particularly after he had already made a film
about the history of Algeria's National Liberation Army,
Peuple en marche
(1963). No one had dared to make a film like this before in France,
one that not only sought to bring the truth of the Algerian War to the French
public, but to do so with a biting in-your-face realism and a devastating
sense of humanity. Vautier confronts the sheer inanity of the war head-on
and what he delivers is nothing less than the most savage indictment of a
conflict that had no basis in morality and even less in logic. To him,
the war was a futile End of Empire gesture, one that was bound to end in
Algerian independence and the complete humiliation of the French nation.
No wonder the French government sought so strenuously to lay it to
rest.
Avoir vingt ans dans les Aurès does not make for comfortable
viewing, and for the most part it feels more like a shoestring documentary
than a filmed drama inspired by real events. Philippe Léotard,
in one of his earliest big roles, is the only recognisable face on screen,
and the stark naturalism of his performance prevents him from stealing the
focus as a lead actor would no doubt have done in a comparable Hollywood
offering. The rough-and-ready feel of the film is jarring but it endows
it with a chilling immediacy, and brings home both the injustice and horror
of its subject matter.
Although intended as an all-out attack on French militarism at the time of
the Algerian conflict, the film has a much wider resonance and serves as
one of French cinema's most eloquent and most effective anti-war films.
The film was widely acclaimed on its release and was honoured with the FIPRESCI
Prize at the 1972 Festival de Cannes. Despite the prominence of Vautier's
film, the Algerian War remained an exceedingly touchy subject in France for
at least another decade, and attempts by other filmmakers to cover the same
territory were just as fiercely opposed by the censor, most notably Yves
Boisset's
R.A.S. (1974) and Laurent
Heynemann's
La Question (1977).
© James Travers 2019
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
It is 1961 and France is locked into a seemingly interminable war with its
North African colony of Algeria. The French government of course does
not recognise this as a war as such, but rather a 'campaign of pacification'.
To wage this campaign and bring the troublesome rebels to heel, young French
conscripts are sent to Algeria by their thousands, to serve and die for the
honour of France. Of course there are some who refuse to participate
in this noble escapade, young men who had other career plans in mind.
A group of such misguided souls find themselves interned in a military camp
where they are subjected to a brutal training regime to transform them into
mean fighting machines. They have the resourceful and charismatic Lieutenant
Perrin to thank for this remarkable metamorphosis. The same party,
now hardened warriors, arrive in Algeria and find themselves stationed in
the Aurès mountains where fighters in the National Liberation Army
are putting up a fierce resistance against what it sees as an illegal occupying
power. In the ensuing frenzied battle an Algerian is taken prisoner,
his fate: to be executed the next day. For one member of the French
rookie battalion this is one injustice he cannot stomach...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.