The Remarkable Power of Language in The Battle of Algiers

Abstract

The bilingualism of The Battle of Algiers is one of the film’s most salient characteristics, yet it is mostly absent from the literature. The use of two languages within the film creates disjuncture in its textual fabric, disjuncture in places that do not always align with neat French/Algerian fault-lines. The alternating use of French and Algerian Arabic exists in productive tension with a unity of perspective that the film offers the viewer, revealing the difficulty of holding together and making narrative sense of the historical moment that constitutes its subject matter, the eponymous Battle of Algiers, at the time at which the film was produced, in the newly independent Algeria of the mid-1960s. The representation of the FLN’s unity and legitimacy as the sole representative of the will of the people paints over historical divisions, but the irrepressible force of the Algerian masses frequently de-centres the FLN, a fact revealed in the film’s linguistic make-up.