Dir.
Rachid Bouchareb, 2006, France/Morocco/Algeria/Belgium, 120
mins
Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila
Review by Joyce Dundas
As an interesting and original addition
to the recent spate of films dealing with World War II, Days
of Glory is a classy piece of work. It's so good it could
use the tagline Band of North African Brothers. However,
unlike Easy Company, these heroes are largely unsung today
and even then they were fighting more than the Nazis, they
also had their hands full fighting discrimination from the
natives of the very country they were trying to liberate
and the ingrained racism of their fellow troops.
The film is carried by a strong ensemble
cast, which won all four lead actors the best actor award
at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006: Saïd (Debbouze)
is the loveable,childlike character who will do anything
if it means acceptance; Yassir, as played by Naceri in
probably the weakest performance of the four, is the Berber
who is told he can steal anything in North Africa but nothing
when they reach French soil; Messaoud (Zem) is the romantic
who falls in love with a French woman only to have the
relationship quite literally censored by French bureaucracy;
and Corporal Abdelkader (Bouajila), who convinces these
men that they will receive the recognition they deserve
if they do their duty for France.
As the French army fought for liberty against the occupying
troops the country looked to its North African colonies for
reinforcements. Those men duly stepped up to do their duty
for what they called the motherland marching proudly to the
stirring rhythm of the French national anthem La Marseillaise,
believing there can no stronger reasons for fighting than
Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. The film does a good job
in telling their story.
The racism they encounter is evidenced
in obvious ways – French
troops are addressed by name and in rations they are given
oranges where the North Africans are not – and in insidious
ways – the North Africans are given no schooling as
promised in the field manual, dutifully studied by Abdelkader,
nor will they ever be considered for promotion, no matter
how talented the soldier.
The film is a good one, though not
unpredictable. It is true to, and a good example of, its
genre. There are some very familiar scenes– the obligatory revisit to white
cross, in this case also white stone, cemetery plot is here – and
this film doesn't have anything new to say about war itself.
Where it does have something very important to say is about
the story then, and since, of those who are sent to war.
It makes this point in a very early scene as the French officers
look on, at a very safe distance, while the North African
division is quite literally used as cannon fodder to plot
the gun positions of the enemy. And, as if the German artillery
is not lethal enough, the fire that the indigènes
(meaning natives, the original French title of the film)
then take from the guns of their adopted motherland is anything
but friendly.
The contemporary appeal of the film
is shown by its nomination for an Oscar in the foreign
language category and the winning of the award in Cannes.
On accepting their award, the actors broke into a traditional
song: “We come from the colonies
to save the motherland, we come from afar to die, we are
the men of Africa.”
When we see an old Abdelkader living in a tiny little bedsit,
presumably in Marseilles or a similar city, a text coda follows
to explain how the French government treated these veterans
of former colonies after independence was declared during
the '60s. Another emotional and ongoing unfairness of war.
Since the film has received such acclaim, a change in French
government policy to equalise pensions for foreign veterans
with that of French veterans has been passed. A good victory
but the film leaves you with the question of whether liberty
and fraternity have been as well served? |
