In the movie battle of Algiers ,would you characterize the violence perpetrated by the characters who were members of the FLN as "resistance" or "terrorism"? Why? What is the film trying to argue about the line between the two? Point to specific examples.

 

In the film Battle of Algiers, the violence perpetrated by the characters who were members of the FLN should be considered as a form of resistance. The film sheds a light on how the legacy of Western colonialism may serve as a stimulus for thinking about the roots of discontent with the West in the Islamic world. The film is a product of the global anti-imperialist response in the 1960s which linked the struggles in Algeria, Vietnam, and Angola as well as in Latin America. Many alienated Western youth identified with this insurgency against capitalism and colonialism.

Furthermore, the film, which was about anti-imperialist resistance in the Algerian Revolution, should inspire some viewers with thoughts about challenging political authorities, an effect that created a good deal of controversy in the 1960s. Screenings for The Battle of Algiers were often perceived as fostering domestic insurrection and providing tactical instructions for revolutionaries. Essentially, the theme is one of valor—the valor of people who fight for liberation from economic and political oppression. 

The director Pontecorvo and his screenwriter Franco Solinas wanted to portray the struggle of the National Liberation Front (FLN) to gain independence for Algeria and free the Algerian people from French oppression. They sympathized with the Algerian revolutionaries. The director perceived the Algerian Revolution as part of a larger global anticolonial historical movement which he wanted to support with his filmmaking. The goal of Pontecorvo and his Italian filmmaking crew was to present the FLN as freedom fighters that resorted to terrorist tactics as the only means available to combat the oppression of the French colonizers.