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Four men on the battlefront

POIGNANT: From Days of Glory

Film: Days of Glory (French and Arabic with English subtitles)

Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem, Samy Naceri

Director: Rachid Bouchareb

It is a rare film that combines unbridled testosterone with a thought-provoking plot. Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs is one such that immediately comes to mind. Days of Glory is cast in the same mould. The film, which lost the Academy Award for the best foreign language film to the German film Life of Others last year, is set during the Second World War.

The film opens in 1943 in Algeria when four Algerians enlist in the army to fight for their motherland, France, which they have never seen, against Germany.

Their battles take them through Provence, Italy and finally to make a heroic stand in Alsace.

As the war progresses, the indigenous North African soldiers realise they are being discriminated against. Though they fight as bravely as the French troops, the latter get better rations, promotions and leave. The cruellest blow is the stoppage of veteran pensions by the governments. It was only after the movie was screened that the policy was changed.

Days of Glory follows four men, Said, an illiterate private who hopes to find family in the army, Messaoud, the crack shot and sniper, who falls in love with a French girl in Provence, Abdelkader, an intellectual who wants equal rights, and Yassir, who, with his brother, hopes to escape poverty through the army. The men are under the command of Sergeant Martinez who hides his Arab roots but is still willing to speak up for his men.

The film has excellently choreographed action sequences — the result of storyboarding 900 shots. Shot on location, including Ouarzazate, Agadir, the south of France, Morocco, Vosges and around the Alsace-Loraine border for the epic feel, Days of Glory is still an intimate story of four men, their conflicted sergeant and their last lonely brave stand in Alsace.

Director Rachid Bouchareb says that while the story of the North African troops needed to be told, he wanted to make a film not a documentary. It took him “25 versions to get beyond history and concentrate on the human content.” The effort is definitely worth it as the end result is a poignant, gripping war film.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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