SparkMore
n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
mmunier
Born in France in 1942, I've heard and feel a lot about "foreigners" Jews, Arabs and Negroes. And yes I have been influenced by what I've heard and seen. I'm not sure if this influence is still present in me but I believe I'm aware of its possibility and think this is important. I found Indigenes (in English Day of Glory) to be quite thought provoking and at times it had the effect of someone twisting a knife in my body. And perhaps more acutely as I feel a little affected with current and frequent events that sees increasing unrest from extreme Islam activity. However the film reminds us that Christian activities were also source of worry and pain. As for discrimination,I have also been aware of a similar situation with the black US soldiers of the same era. Recently a matriculation tag was found on a French beach and miraculously returned to its Black owner who told the story as it was. That is blatant discrimination! "Indigenes" highlights the same situation. The film touches very private interaction amongst "foreign" and French soldiers, but also their different ideology amongst themselves as some wanted to be French others wanted their own identity. Yes at time it is quite arrowing, but this is war, however the arrowing is also provided by such discrimination and in this regard make sure you don't miss the notation at the very end of the film,unthinkable yet real!
johnnyboyz
Rachid Bouchareb certainly demonstrates the ability to get across a sense of war being absolute Hell for those involved; the Paris born filmmaker's 2007 piece Days of Glory unashamed of going some lengths to try and depict a war-zone on the Western Front of World War Two that is grotty, grimy, mud soaked and blood stained. His film is one of which will shift out of its way to encompass that of the carcasses of dead horses and dogs as a result of a farm-set skirmish; it is a film whose attitude to its subject matter sees it document a procession the soldiers whom we follow must go through, specifically, the having to laboriously drag, dig and then bury the dead of the enemies troops, all of which is played out to a harrowing silence and usually shot using extended takes with tight compositions.The rotten cherry on top of this stagnant cake is the realisation that those going through all of this are doing so, not for the glory of one's nation, but the honour of one's parental state; spare a thought for those inherently involved in said activity whom were there out of necessity for their nation's commonwealth and precolonial attitudes than individual, respective countries. Where the agony of life as a front-line grunt on arguably the planet's grimiest war of the twentieth century is on show most scenes for all to see, Bouchareb's film is one of which carries with it an underbelly of marginalisation; specifically, the zoning in on France and its attitudes to its troops of the North African territories fighting for a motherland in jeopardy few of them will have ever visited nor ever even will. The film's attitude towards war reads that it is most certainly Hell, but it is Hellish and persistently something else for those whom the film covers.The film will begin with some stock footage, 1940s-era newsreel footage, of various aspects of the lifestyle led in a nation which looks like it might be French North Africa – maybe Tunsia, or indeed even Algeria. There is a sense of it being a world away from what lies across the Mediterranean in the form of continental Europe, or even more specifically, that of France. This overseas territory, and its varying expressions of entertainment; culture and industry on show highlighting how different it is to that of its colonial mother figure. Yet, the film mutates into a piece all about the dragging of such a nation, seen in the scratchy black and white footage, into France's problems; and the fact they must fight for a nation seemingly so different to that of its own in a deal seeing a shared burden and fighting under the same flag.We follow a handful soldiers of this colonial army, their own chorus sung within the regiment made up of those ranging from black Africans most probably of places such as Senegal, to respective Arabs each echoing a somewhat bemused sentiment of having to come from the colonies to fight for the red, white and blue of France. A couple of them are Messaoud (Zem), somewhat of a sharpshooter within the ranks; Saïd (Debbouze), the stocky Arab of a humble background and Yassir, played by Samy Naceri doing well to atone for those Taxi films. As characters, their initial position in this war is strictly as that of rookies rather out of their depth with what it is they're facing; the vicious warfare against the rampaging Nazi war machine aside, a telling early sequence of events in the southern French region of Provence initially details a real lack of familiarity or prominence to their surroundings, with specific reference to religion; the local, even western, attitudes to those of the opposite sex; attitudes towards items otherwise out of grasp back home in the form of alcohol and basic, functioning ways of living such as sleeping here with sheets.Their initiation into warfare arrives after the establishment that the troops are underdogs in relation to the imminent fight; the physical bringing onto screen of a German rifle followed by the verbal confirmation of its superiority does not bode well for the immediate future. Following the battle, which results in an impressive Allied victory and is a well constructed sequence of warfare, Bouchareb illustrates the second part of his film's thesis after the depiction of colonial forces making a real effort and contributing greatly by supplying a photojournalist with a scene in which he is told by a French colonel to hype the battle up as a piece of propaganda, complete with little mention of the colonial forces and their efforts whilst keeping the win within the boundaries of it being "French".The episodic nature Bouchareb applies to the film eventually quietens down away from the hopping from locale to locale, each new place bookended by an establishing shot and a date to entirely place us, and the film beds into a neat groove of these soldiers getting by as they head deeper and deeper into occupied France. The characters develop personalities as the warfare shapes them, each of them forge goals one might say would have otherwise been unattainable had their "national" service not come about; Saïd wishes to become a Captain, whereas Messaoud meets a girl in Marseilles and desires to settle down with her – each instance an alluding to further sociological issues of which would become more prominent later on, as that of French colonial individuals becoming more integrated into France post-war. The film is imbued with this sentiment of remembering the past and how it ought to affect the present, and Bouchareb deals with that in the manner he deems fit, but it is ultimately a genre piece with its heart in the right place as well as a really good study of segregation that works an awful lot more than it doesn't.
Eumenides_0
Rachid Bouchareb and Olivier Lorelle's movie uncovers a missing story from WWII in telling the story of the North African French soldiers who suffered discrimination while fighting for a country that not only colonized theirs but that they had been taught to regard as their true homeland.The movie follows four natives - Morrocan and Algerian soldiers - and a pied-noir, a French sergeant living in Algeria, and is mostly an indictment against France for the way it abused its own patriot soldiers. Each character exists mostly to highlight a particular type of discrimination: there's the intelligent, outspoken native who deserves to become a sergeant and yet is always ignored in favor of Frenchmen or pied-noirs. There's the young native who becomes the sergeant's aide-de-camp in a patronising relationship (oblivious to the sergeant, of course, who thinks he's a pretty fair man). There's the native in love with a French woman and all the problems that come from that. And so on...Since most characters exist to make points, they're never real characters. Perhaps with the exception of Sargeant Martinez, who hides his Arab roots and has a love-hate relationship with his men that makes him hard to define; and Corporal Abdelkader, a man who keeps deluding himself that one day France will recognise his efforts and valor.There's an aura of sadness throughout the movie as for the viewer it's obvious that neither of these characters will come to any good. Every scene of this movie is calculated to draw sympathy for the way these honest, patriotic men are treated by France. And since this movie is mostly a pamphlet, it's successful. But then again, a documentary would have been even more.There are doubts whether it's successful as art, though.
