28 July 2007

Review

BEIRUT: There are several masterfully executed sequences in Rachid Bouchareb's World War II film "Indigenes." In one, North African troops fighting for a Free French battalion are treated to a ballet performance. It's meant to be a culturally-uplifting bone thrown to the Algerians, Moroccans and Senegalese who have been forbidden to leave Europe, while French nationals have all buggered off to be with their families.

For a few minutes the soldiers in the concert hall stare, bewildered, at the man and woman in tights and tutu, while the cinema audience savors the delicious incongruity of the moment. The troops then begin pouring out of the hall. "What is this nonsense?" demands Messaoud Souni (Roschdy Zem, one of Bouchareb's stars), before stomping out himself.

As the audience of six people trickled out of Concorde Cinema Eight, where "Indigenes," which has been picking up awards ever since its world premiere in 2006, finally commenced its Beirut release on Thursday evening, the strangeness of the ballet scene fleetingly reasserted itself.

Bouchareb's film is a tautly strung war movie and most people will want to see it for that reason alone. Told from the perspective of colonial troops, it also resonates deeply with France's present multicultural travails - indeed with those of any country trying to cope with social policy issues arising from south-north immigration and integration. It is the early days of the Allied invasion of Europe and De Gaulle's officers go

fishing for colonial soldiers, hoping to elevate their stature with their Anglo-Saxon allies. The camera touches down briefly in North Africa to witness the recruitment.

Said (Jamel Debbouze), an Algerian villager with a useless right arm defies his mother's pleas to stay home, saying he wants to fight for Mother France. In Morocco, meanwhile, a Berber named Yassir and his younger brother Larbi (Samy Naceri and Assad Bouab) sign up so they can earn enough money to get married.

The men are put under the command of Sergeant Martinez (Bernard Blancan), a self-hating Maghrebi whose family name means he can pass himself off as a Frenchman. They're in the same unit as Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila), an educated and upwardly mobile corporal, and Messaoud Souni (Roschdy Zem), the marksman who is the centerpiece of so many war movies.

When Martinez's aide-de-camp dies during an offensive against the Nazis in North Africa, he has Said make coffee for him. The two grow close, and it soon becomes clear that their characters foil each other. Said resolutely refuses offers of promotion and advancement. When Abdelkader tells the sergeant his aide should learn to read, Said replies that it's too late for him to learn, "and what would I read, anyway?" Amused at Abdelkader's ambitions, the sergeant tells him Arabs are unsuited to command.

The Maghrebis fight their way through Italy and join the campaign to take France back from the Nazis and their Vichy allies. Once again, the people of Marseilles are portrayed as color blind when expressing their gratitude to their liberators. Said is too gormless to strike while the iron is hot but Messaoud, who has "No Luck" tattooed across his chest, finds his passionate one-night stand morph into a love affair - one stunted by the French army censor.

The ballet interlude becomes the turning point of the film. Messaoud is arrested afterward for trying to go to Marseilles to see his lover. Abdelkader is arrested for rallying his fellow troops, saying the African troops deserve a portion of that liberty, equality and fraternity that they're fighting to defend.

There is something at once unfortunate and amusing about the timing of this "Indigenes." Given the ambient paranoia in Beirut these days about impending war - whether involving Israeli arms or foreign-armed and -allied Lebanese - how many Lebanese could possibly be interested in watching a film about Arabs fighting and dying in the interest of their colonizers? In that magical land of the imagination where Baghdadis still queue-up to go to the movies, how many of them would turn out to see "Indigenes"?

That said, Bouchareb's film is worth seeing on a big screen, and not just because Concorde Cinema Eight is refrigerated and two stories underground.

The main reason is the look and pace of this 128-minute film. Thanks in part to its $15-million budget and the sure hand of cinematographer Patrick Blossier and editor Yannick Kergoat, "Indigenes" makes for compelling viewing. The battle sequences have been compared to those of such Hollywood juggernauts as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Enemy at the Gates," perhaps the reason that Bouchareb won Cannes' Francois Chalais Award for cinematic realism.

The budget (immense by the standards of Middle East and North African film) didn't erase the dedication to the writing. The story falls into a well-rehearsed prototype for WWII feature films, but co-writers Bouchareb and Olivier Morelle make good use of this vessel to tell the ageing morality tale from a subaltern perspective.

The film is replete with dramatic irony, for instance, as when the French and Maghrebis are en route from Italy to Marseilles. The men are queuing for food and one of them reaches into a crate of fresh tomatoes. A confrontation ensues when he's told they're reserved for the French. It's resolved when the officers agree that, since the Africans face the same bullets as the French do, they deserve the same tomatoes.

As soon as the incident is resolved, a teary-eyed commanding officer comes over the PA system to tell the troops they're approaching Mother France. The North African troops spontaneously burst into a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise.

The characters are composites assembled from the memoirs of Maghrebi war veterans. They are well drawn not because they necessarily "evolve" but because of their gradually unveiled complexity. The acting plays no small part in this, as was noted by the 2006 Cannes Film Festival jury - who awarded Debbouze, Naceri, Zem, Bouajila and Blancan a collective Best Actor prize.

The film won't necessarily appeal to everyone, of course. Like most war flicks, "Indigenes" is a boys' movie: All the principal characters are men and the number of women who get more than 30 seconds of screen time can be counted on one hand.

Then there's that troubling resonance with the present.

In an interview late last year, Roschdy Zem remarked that "Indigenes" was successful because it has a good story, not because it was an Arab story. In fact, the film's final frames inform the audience that Maghrebis who fought for France haven't had their pensions brought up to date since the 1950s. After its release, the French press made much of how, upon seeing the film, then-President Jacques Chirac immediately ordered that all France's Maghrebi veterans have their pensions updated - for one year.

Well, there's still the AC.

Rachid Bouchareb's "Indigenes" is screening now at Circuit Planete cinemas throughout Lebanon