As we touched on in our discussion of A View of Love, with the notable exceptions of Gillo Pontecorvo’s renowned The Battle of Algiers (1966), Hollywood’s Lost Command (also 1966) and Jean-Luc Godard’s The Little Soldier (1960, but released 1963), the French occupation of Algeria and the subsequent war throughout the 1950s and 1960s is something that cinema has often struggled to come to terms with.

Writer / director Rachid Bouchareb had previously explored the dynamic between the colonial French and the ‘motherland’ in his 2006 Cannes Film Festival Indigènes (Days of Glory), in which a group of four North African Muslims enlist in the fight for France during the Second World War. During the Algerian War of 1954 to 1962, there was violence both in Algeria and in the streets of Paris. Bouchareb attempts to take a holistic approach to this moment in history once again via the stories his small group of Algerian ex-pats.

After losing their ancestral home to French colonists in Alegria, three brothers take very different paths across the world. Messaoud (Roschdy Zem, Days of Glory) joins the French army to fight in Indochina, Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila) is sent to jail in France as an Algerian political prisoner and Saïd (Jamel Debbouze, Amélie) moves with their mother to the slums of Paris where he becomes a success in the local organised crime gangs. When Abdelkader is released from prison, he is intent on raising the consciousness and fists of the local Algerians against the French oppressors by taking the fight to the French on their own territory. Recruiting Messaoud, the two brothers begin to grow apart from Saïd, who has his own ambitions for fame and glory.

Dealing with this historic travesty in an unbiased way is virtually impossible, especially given the emotions that this kind of story is likely to evoke on both sides of the political fence. Indeed, to speak of ‘both sides’ is already hopelessly simplifying a problem that traces its roots back the imperialistic and colonial roots of many an empire across the world prior to the First World War. As is the nature of such tales on-screen, we are given a personalised account of the events via three brothers who have taken three very different paths through adversity. Those paths may be tried and true on-screen – a criminal, a military vet and a political prisoner-turned-rebel – but the same could be said of the reality of coming from a war-torn country, with destinies forged by an imperialistic power that has no notions of how it will impact on the lives of average people.

In this sense, we are only given a limited view of the horrors that were perpetrated in both Algeria and France during this period, with massacres and brutality that seems out of step with the sophisticated persona that Paris displays to the world. The shanty-town in which many of the Algeria refugees reside sits just outside the Paris city lights, within sight of the Eiffel Tower but a world away in practice. In many ways, this is what we as audiences members must endure: the closeness of human drama but with the distance of time and experience to truly understand the breadth of the moment in history.

As a way of personalising history, Bouchareb brings his trio of actors back from their Days of Glory roles and continues their tale in a different context. The film is very heavy-handed in its politics, with there being very little in the way of a grey area between French nationalism and the explosive politics of Abdelkader’s FLN (Front de Libération Nationale). The film certainly downplays the thousands of French killed as part of the FLN bomb attacks in the so-called ‘Café Wars’ during the Algerian War, but by same token it may shock many to learn of the sheer brutality of the Paris police force in dealing with any Algerians on the streets of the French capital.

The reduction of this tragic period of French history to a series of personal stories may not encompass all the politics of the day, but it does what it sets out to do and bring a sense of individual drama to a set of events that couldn’t possibly be contained within one film. Although we are kept at arm’s length by the dramatic action at times, and this is seemingly a piece of entertainment first and foremost, the audience ultimately gains an insight into a period that we hope never repeats in our time.

The Reel Bits: A powerful human drama set against the backdrop of a tragic war within living memory. Superbly acted by the principle cast of brothers, this lavish production is undoubtedly one of the modern epics of this year’s festivals.

Outside the Law is screening as part of the Alliance Française French Film Festival 2011.