Guerrilla Cinema: The Battle of Algiers Rages on 50 Years Later

If The Battle of Algiers premiered in today's War on Terror world—with its unsparing scenes of café bombings, checkpoints and home raids—Sean Hannity would probably reach out of your TV screen, Poltergeist-like, and punch you in the face for sedition. But back in 1966, Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo's epic depiction of the Algerian War (1954-1962) against the French mastered the political realism that came to define the Third Cinema movement, and audiences identified with the Arab Muslim resistance it captured, making it a masterpiece of world cinema that hasn't been replicated since.

Read more on my OC Weekly film review out on newsstands today:

http://www.ocweekly.com/film/uci-professor-50-years-later-the-battle-of-algiers-remains