8/13/2019 Lumumba - Film Review
1/2
Cristian Andronic
Professor VandiverWRI 144, Empire and International Relation
Due: Oct 21, 2013.
Film features developing motive and argument in
Lumumba and Battle of Algiers
The war film The Battle of Algiers had a peculiar cast. Gillo
Pontecorvo,
director and writer, chose to shot it entirely with
non-professional actors, with the
sole exception of Col. Mathieu.1Thus, the cast was comprised of
Algerians
Pontecorvo met in Algiers, chosen primarily by the features and
impact these would
have on the audience.
However, given the highly dramatic message of the film, one can
easily
imagine that it was at times hard to convey the intense unrest
and struggle by
relying solely on a non-professional cast. Gillo Pontecorvos
solution proved to be
quite ingenious.
Pontecorvo chose to use indigenous Algerian drumming instead of
usual
dialogue during shooting and bombing scenes in order to
effectively convey their
disturbing nature. Thus, as FLN militants drive around the
streets of Algiers, the
drumming sounds induce us into a state of hallucinatory and
dreamlike perception,
so as to prepare us of what is about follow. When the militants
engage in open fire
towards civilians, the drums have the effect of blending the
desperate actions of the
militants into the pulse of the city, rendering the whole of
Algiers its state of infernal
unrest.
1Peter Matthews, "The Battle of Algiers: Bombs and Boomerangs",
in The Battle ofAlgiersbooklet accompanying the Criterion
Collection DVD release, p. 8
8/13/2019 Lumumba - Film Review
2/2
Cristian Andronic
Professor VandiverWRI 144, Empire and International Relation
Due: Oct 21, 2013.
What particularly strikes about the film is its impartial
perspective on the
combatants of the war. Thus, both sides are depicted with their
moral and immoral
decisions. The film aims to show that the line between the
attacker and the victim is
blurred, both parties being engaged in repressive practices. The
sound makes this
uniformity more vivid, highlighting the harshness of the
war.
In the film Lumumba, the voice of Lumumba after his
assassination is present
both in the first and last scenes of the film and plays a key
role. In the beginning, we
see three corpses being unburied and then burnt. The voice of
Lumumba narrates
the scene and introduces us to the motive of the film: why were
they so afraid of
Lumumba, even after his death? The image of the scorching fire
together with his
voice brings up the picture of a phoenix. In the very next
scene, the viewer is
brought back to the beginning, the first days of Lumumba as a
founder of the
Mouvement national congolais. Through his voice, Lumumba
mobilized thousands of
people to oppose the secession of the Katanga province. By the
end of the film, after
the entire proceeding of his capturing, containment and
assassination, we might
falsely believe that Lumumba was removed. However, the last
scene of his body
being set ablaze, yet his voice being present, serene and
unaffected, shows us that
Lumumba was not a momentary episode in the history of Congo, but
that he will
continue to inspire generations, many years after his death.
