The Economist February 19th 2011
ooks and
) the Algerian entry made it into the fina1
Oscar line-up, which is a pity because the
French one stays in the mind longer.
"Outside the Law" is a fast-paced glossy
gangster movie out to make a political
point. Mr Bouchareb's previous film, "Indigdnes" ("Days of Glory"), brought home to
French audiences the contribution of
north African soldiers to liberating Europe
from Nazi occupation. Embarrassed, the
French government promptly raised the
pensions of such veterans to match their
French counterparts'. This time Mr Bouchareb's starting point is the rg+S S6tif
massacres, which began when unarmed
Algerians, marching to celebrate victory in
Europe and to press nationalist demands,
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p
IS
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b,
It
were gunned down by French forces;
many thousands died in the subsequent
d
s,
repression. Told through the eyes of three
Algerian brothers, who lose their father in
the massacres, it follows their reunion
IS
a,
.1t
in
France, and the different
choices each makes as an underground
Algerian resistance movement takes hold
years later
it
h
among automobile workers and
io
shantytowns
of
r95os Nanterre,
outskirts of Paris.
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"Outside the Law" is
n-
in
the
the
a respectable
D-
action film, which turns the spotlight on a
disturbing episode of history. Mr Boucha-
ro
reb says he wanted to show that
a
"chews people up and spits them out". He
unflinchingly depicts the barbarism on
both sides.
"Of Gods and Men", by contrast, is not
about politics. it is a remarkable study of
spirituality and sacrifice, and how men of
faith cope when their ideals are challenged
by violent reality. Based on a true story, it
follows a group of Cistercian monks,living
modestly among poor villagers in the little
Tibhirine monastery in the Algerian Atlas
Mountains. As the Algerian civil war and
Islamist terrorist attacks intensified around
them in the mld-r99os, they were warned
that their lives were at risk, but chose, after
much collective agonising, to stay. ln:.996
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in
churches. Its cramped cinematography
mirrors their daily lives. The monks are
human, and they rage and doubt, torn between a survival instinct to leave and a
spiritual calling to stay. They run a health
clinic for villagers and fear abandoning
them to terror. "It is mad to stay, like it is
mad to become a monk," says Brother
Christian wryly, the group's leader, played
by Lambert Wilson.
"Of Gods and Men" is not without
>)
So help me God
flaws. Its "Last Supper" scene at the end, at
which the monks share red wine, tears and
smiles in silent contemplation of their fate,
to the swelling chords of Tchaikovsky's
"Swan Lake",
is not quite
controlled
enough to sustain the heavy emotion. Nor
does the fi1m ever confront the postcolonial questions that hover over the
Algerian villagers' dependence on the
French monks. But such shortcomings are
readily forgiven. It is a deeply affecting
film, with a forceful message. In a posthumous letter, delivered as a voice-over as
the monks are led away to their deaths,
Brother Christian urges those who outlive
him not to caricature Islam, nor to blame
all Algerians for his murder-a
more pertinent today than ever.
I
message
Politicat theatre
Marathon training
America's generals learn about Afghanistan throughthe stage
may repeai itself, but we are
rarely the wiser for it. And Alghanistan, that complicated, hapless place, has
long been a victim of its geography.
These are among the lessons of "The
f.fISTORY
I I
Great Game: Afghanistan", a marathon
of a dozen plays about the history of
Western involvement in the country.
Nicolas I(ent, the artistic director of the
Tricycle Theatre in London, commissioned these works from different writers
at a time when he felt the pubiic had
stopped caring about Afghanistan. After
a successful first run in London in zoog
"The Great Game" returned to Washington, oc, inmid-February at the behest of
the Pentagon. Officials at the Defence
Department thought it would be a good
primer on Afghanistan for serving soldiers, veterans and politicians.
The plays are impressive for the way
they conveythe complexity of the country's past without wagging fingers. Presented chronologicaily in a nearly eighthour trilogy, the cycle begins inJalalabad
inr84z, during the British and Indian
army's bloody retreat from I(abul
("Bugles at the cates ofJalalabad" by
StephenJefreys), and continues up til1
zoro, as a British soldier struggles to
adjust to life at home after his time in
Helmand ("Canopy of Stars" by Simon
Stephens). The title, "The Great Game",
an expression popularised by Rudyard
Kipling, is a reference to the way the
British and Russian empires jockeyed for
position in the region in the rgth century.
Performed by an unflagging cast of14,
the piays are a bit uneven and occasionally heavy on expositional details. But
they are consistently engaging, and the
accumulative effect is powerful. Viewers
n-
lv
revolution
seven of them were kidnapped; only their
decapitated heads were ever found. An Islamist terror group claimed responsibility.
The film has spellbound French audiences, moved by the simplicity and faith of
the Tibhirine monks, in an age of materialistic excess, celebrity froth and empty
arts
come away with a sense of Afghanistan's
long history as a battleground for foreign
interests and rival powers. Inevitably
some moments are heavywith dramatic
irony, such as in Lee Blessing's "Wood for
the Fire", in which an American cIA
operative working in Pakistan in the
r98os declares, "We can't worry about
tomorrow's wars today." Yet this cycle is
nuanced enough not to cast blame.
These plays "bring an immediacy to
skirmishes read about in books," said
Josh Frey, an American serviceman. A
member of the armed forces'new "AfPak Hands" programme, which immerses soldiers in language and culture
training before sending them off to Afghanistan and Pakistan, he found that
"The Great Game" offered a "personal
connection" to the information he has
been studying. Chris Groves, a commander in the Royal Navv added that the
cycle not only places the current war in
context, but also gets across how difficult
it is to make progress there.
The plays were put on at the Shakespeare Theatre with help from the British
Council and the Bob Woodruff Foundation, an American non-profit organisation that seeks to help injured service
members. The Pentagon is keen for more
partnerships with the private sector, such
as
"Wartorn: 186r-zoro",
a
documentary
about post-traumatic stress disorder
which nno broadcast in November, and
which helped convey the needs of soldiers to a wider audience. "There is an
assumption that the arts and our men
and women in uniform are from differenl
planets," a Defence Department spokesman told TheEconomist "It's not the case.
We're all in this together."
87