An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Rachid Bouchareb.
Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem
Description: Hard-hitting war opus recounting the true story of the so-called 'indigenous soldiers' from French colonies in North Africa, who fought in the name of France, but have been ignored by history. Like lambs to the slaughter, Abdelkader, Larbi, Messaoud, Said and Yassir head for Alsace to defend a town against the Nazis. Their training cannot prepare them for the horrors that lie ahead, or the sacrifices they will be forced to make to survive the German onslaught.
Country: FR/MOR/ALG/BEL. 2006. 123mins
Glory in their sights: Samy Nacéri, Bernard Blancan and Sami Bouajila play Algerian soldiers on a mission in Alsac
War films, it seems, are taking a more audacious turn now that patriotism and heroics are no longer the order of the day.
Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima showed us the Japanese enemy of the Second World War as brave human beings.
Now French-born Algerian Rachid Bouchareb's epic takes on even more controversial subject matter: the treatment of France's North African soldiers who fought for the mother country during the war and received little thanks.
By 1940, a defeated France had no army to speak of, since almost one and a half million soldiers were prisoners in Germany. It was De Gaulle's call to continue the fight that rallied the French colonies and allowed France slowly but surely to make its influence felt again among the Allies.
Yet, after the war, in the early Sixties when decolonialisation was completed, France decided to freeze the retirement and invalid pensions paid to their African soldiers. French servicemen eventually received 10 times as much as they did.
Days of Glory has at least three major virtues. The first is the performances from the five relatively inexperienced principals - who shared the Best Actor award at Cannes last year. With eloquence and credibility, Jamel Debbouze, Samy Nacéri, Roschdy Zem, Bernard Blancan and Sami Bouajila demonstrate how Muslim men enlisted partly out of misplaced patriotism and partly to relieve their poverty and get a regular wage.
The second is the battle scenes which, without trying to achieve the spectacular, are dangerously real.
And the third is Bouchareb's refusal to overload the sympathy we might have for these sometimes naïve men who became as good soldiers as any France had. Not all their French officers are painted as racist colonialists. But the few we see refuse to promote any of their African men or even to treat them as equals.
The explosive ending, in which the Africans are sent on a bloody mission to free a vital village in Alsace, more than compensates for an approach which is competent but cinematically rather plain. What it makes perfectly clear is that France owes a considerable debt to the ancestors of today's reviled Algerian immigrants, and has hardly begun to repay it.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
This is a film that shows how true warfilms should be made
The film is set after the after the defect of france, from 1940. It shows the enlistment of North African men, to fight for the flag and liberate the
mother country from the Germans.
Samy Naceri, Jamie Debbouze and Roshdy zeen are the main actors for the film. they play there roles as very belivable soilders. The battle scenes are very well choregraphed and put togther, tho the quiet moments are probley the most powerfull. As the film goes on they start to question what they are doing, killing there fellow man and loseing thier comrades in arms around them.
The ending is very powerfull and sums up what an impact "WAR" has on people- A waste, and waste of life!
- Steven Kingett, Leyton, London.
Tonight:
9°c
