Critical Response 1 - Research Paper Example

A Third Cinema, in this case, is described as an ongoing phenomenon that the filmmakers still apply in themes like politics and aesthetics. The Battle of Algiers is a film about the real events that led Algerian war of independence. The film narrates the story of the National Liberation Front (FLN), a movement that posed a danger to French occupation in Algeria (Mellen 16). The French troops defeated FLN during revolutionary movements. However, the movement strengthened and united other liberation movements throughout Algeria, which made them defeat French troop in 1962.

The Battle of Algiers is a representation of Fanon’s arguments about violence and veil as an accepted means of anti-colonial struggle. Pontecorvo, producer of Black Skin, White Mask, is specifically concerned with how the Algerians achieved their independence and dignity through violent struggle. The Battle of Algiers is a justification of Fanon’s theory that the war and violence, during the anti-colonial struggle, help people to gain their independence and dignity (Stam & Macmillan Films 11).

It portrays French settlers as brutal and ignorant. The French colonial institution portrayed itself as a body that cannot be negotiated with through non-violent movements like the National Liberation Front. . Therefore, the use of force and violence in this case should be perceived as mechanical but not brutal. Additionally, the use of violence does not entail any scorn as in the case of Colonel Mathieu, who lit cigarette after successfully launching a bomb attack that killed several members of FLN.

In the Battle of Algiers, official representatives and settlers of French colonial power are not concerned about the well-being of Algerians. They mistreat and abuse men, women, and children. This is reflected during a private party organized by French police officer, his colleagues, and their wives. The French officer, at that moment, was organizing a large bomb attack on civilians in the Arab quarter of Algiers, the Kasbah (Stam & Macmillan Films 26). Light classical music played in the background during the party contributing to a relaxing atmosphere.

The wealthy, lightness, and beauty of French lifestyle displayed in the movie leaves the audience to question their dark side of politics of its colonial organization. The party scene then smoothly transforms to the bombing scene, representing settlers’ brutal encounters with the colonial politics. This implies that the French colonial institution perceived the killing of civilians as a habitual and normal activity. This scene also creates a non-hermetic structure, where it gives the audience the opportunity to deconstruct the party scene as a positive self-representation of French colonizers as “uncivilized group”.

This is because the way in which they plan bomb attacks against Algerians is perceived as an “uncivilized” behavior (Mellen 27). Similarly, the manner in which Frantz Fanon develops a non-hermetic structure that does not present a self-enclosed universe in Black Skin, White Mask, can