In 1954, escalating violence in the capital city of French colonial Algeria between the native Algerians seeking independence and the pieds-noirs (ethnic Europeans born in Algeria) led the French to mobilize their army. Their target was the National Liberation Front (FLN), the militarized vanguard of the Algerian independence movement. The Battle of Algiers takes the audience through a horrifying replay of those events, showing the terrifying, cruel brutality both the insurgency and the occupation military wield without a flinch.

It also represents a revolution in filmmaking. By combining historical individuals into composite characters, filming in newsreel style, and using mostly non-professional actors, director Gillo Pontecorvo and cinematographer Marcello Gatti create a hyperreal reconfiguration of actual events, complete with scenes viewed as if through a television at home — because that’s exactly how the viewer is used to seeing scenes of real war.

On release, it was banned in France. Memory of the war was still fresh. In the US, it found a certain amount of immediate acclaim among the anti-war movement. Its influence among filmmakers has only grown through the years, and you can find resonances and references in everything from The Dark Knight Rises to Children of Men. But it also found an audience in actual liberation movements around the world, from the IRA to the Black Panthers. Real rebellions learned tactics by watching fictional depictions, themselves stylized to appear nonfictional, of real events. Never let them tell you art can’t change the world.

In Arabic and French with English subtitles.

VIEW this month’s full Big Picture series lineup.

This screening is held in the Historic Duncan Auditorium. This space utilizes open seating for this event, seat selection is not required.