Days of Glory (2006 film)
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| Days of Glory / Indigènes | |
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| Directed by | Rachid Bouchareb |
| Starring | Jamel Debbouze Samy Naceri Sami Bouajila Roschdy Zem Bernard Blancan |
| Release date(s) | 2006 |
| Running time | 128 minutes |
| Language | French, Arabic |
| Budget | € 14.4 million |
| IMDb profile | |
Days of Glory (French: Indigènes) is a French drama film directed by French-Algerian Rachid Bouchareb. The cast includes Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem and Bernard Blancan. The film won the Prix d'interprétation masculine at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to The Lives of Others.
As well as being successful as a war movie described as a kind of a North African Saving Private Ryan, the film deals with discriminatory treatment of French Africans (the French title translates as Natives) which is still an issue today, and led to a change in government policy.[1]
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[edit] Synopsis
A large number of indigènes (Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccan Goumiers) were enrolled in the French First Army of the Free French Forces, formed to liberate France after the Nazi occupation in World War II. The film portrays the recruitment of these soldiers and their participation in the campaigns in Italy and southern France. The army had been recruited in Africa in French colonies outside the control of the Vichy regime which collaborated with German commissioners.[2]
Four Indigènes in a mobile corps[3] with a reputation for endurance and courage in close combat are sent to the front line, each with a different personal purpose as they fight their way through the Italian Campaign and on to Operation Dragoon to liberate France. One seeks booty, one has joined the army to escape poverty in hopes that it will be his family, one wants to marry and settle in France while the other is fighting in the hope of equality and recognition of the rights of the colonised Algerians.[2] They encounter only discrimination in the army.[4]
[edit] Modern relevance
While each has his own motives, these native Africans have enlisted to fight for a France they have never seen. In the words of a wartime recruiting song the four actors sing within the film as well as at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, "we come from the colonies to save the motherland, we come from afar to die, we are the men of Africa." The film shows a complex depiction of their shabby treatment in an army organisation prejudiced in favour of the European French, a wartime injustice which relates directly to continuing modern tensions.[1]
The discrimination by the French authorities against these soldiers continued as successive French governments froze the war pensions of these indigenous veterans, and it was only after the film's release that the government policy was changed to bring foreign combatant pensions into line with what French veterans are paid.[4]
The atrocities done by the Goumiers were also not featured in this film. (read Marocchinate)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b 'Days of Glory' MOVIE REVIEW - Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan December 6, 2006, retrieved 2007-03-30
- ^ a b Synopsis_GB, retrieved 2007-03-30
- ^ The film is a bit confused on this point. At one point, their unit is named as the 7th Algerian Tirailleur Regiment, but in fact the Goumiers were organized into four regimental-sized groups that were independent of the Tirailleur regiments.
- ^ a b Days of Glory (2006) Channel 4 Film review, retrieved 2007-03-30
[edit] External links
- Days of Glory at the Internet Movie Database
- Official Days of Glory website (English)
- Faut-il avoir honte d'être français? Explication sur le caractère simpliste et mensonger du film (French)
- More4 News report on the impact of Days of Glory
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