Algerian National Cinema par Guy Austin (review)

THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 88, No. 2, December 2014 Printed in U.S.A. Film edited by Michèle Bissière 201 Austin, Guy. Algerian National Cinema. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2012. ISBN 9780 -7190-7993-1. Pp. 272. £60. Is national cinema relevant as a category through which to analyze and understand cultures in general? Reading and interpreting films as cultural texts within their “national”context presents certain limitations which, among other things, could lead to cultural reductionism, particularly vis-à-vis non-Western cultures.Austin takes this leap of faith, however, and bases his study on the premise that “an understanding of national identity can illuminate issues and realms that Western readers in general are not fully aware of”(viii) with regard to Islamic states. In so doing, he privileges cinema “as one of the principal means whereby identities have been articulated in a national context” (viii) and judiciously draws from multiple sources to argue for a reading of Algerian cinema as a “plural cinema” (189). Each of the book’s six chapters (apart from the first two and the conclusion) is devoted to key topics such as cinéma moudjahid (militant cinema), Berber cinema, gender,Algeria’s“Black Decade,”identity, memory, and trauma—the latter being a concept Austin reprises throughout his study. Chapters one and two offer a broad introduction to modern Algerian history and cinema. Citing Bourdieu, Fanon, and Djebar, among others, Austin successfully condenses Algeria’s history into sixteen pages. Chapter two highlights the emergence and evolution of Algerian film and focuses, for example, on the propagandistic use of Algerian cinema in its early days to serve the newly independent State’s nationalistic agenda. As scholars have already noted, most early Algerian films harken back to the nationalistic discourses within which they are geographically and economically framed. Both introductions provide enough contextualization for the subsequent chapters and for those readers who are discovering Algerian history and cinema for the first time. Using a cross-disciplinary approach and taking into account the cultural and national context in which Algerian films were produced, chapters three through eight each present three detailed case studies of films such as Omar Gatlato (1976), La montagne de Baya (1997), Rachida (2002), Viva Laldjérie (2004), Rome plutôt que vous (2006), La maison jaune (2007), and the internationally acclaimed La bataille d’Alger (1965). Each reading combines filmic and thematic analysis as well as factual data to further our understanding of Algeria’s painful colonial past, recent civil unrest, and uncertain present. Overall, and partly thanks to Ranjana Khanna’s rich research, some of Austin’s best insights can be found in his analyses of gender (via films such as Le vent des Aurès, 1966), giving scholars in Women’s Studies an opportunity to further appreciate film as a critical text through which gender-specific questions are raised, albeit mostly through men’s lenses. Algerian National Cinema includes a fairly good balance of non-Western versus Western bibliographical sources and well-chosen illustrations. It is a solid introduction to a little-known yet noteworthy cinema en devenir and would serve well in Francophone film or postcolonial courses with a focus on the Maghreb, and even transnational Gender Studies courses. DePauw University (IN) Cheira Belguellaoui Bertuccelli, Julie, réal. La cour de Babel. Poisson, 2014. Après Depuis qu’Otar est parti (2002) et L’arbre (2011), deux films qui s’interrogent sur l’importance des liens familiaux, Bertuccelli nous offre un documentaire optimiste et touchant qui fait le portrait d’une classe d’accueil d’étrangers dans un collège du dixième arrondissement de Paris. La réalisatrice a filmé durant une année scolaire vingt-quatre élèves âgés de onze à quinze ans et unis par le déracinement et la volonté d’apprendre assez de français pour pouvoir réintégrer les classes “normales”. Dès le début, le film privilégie l’échange culturel à travers le“bonjour”que chacun écrit dans sa langue maternelle. Les raisons de l’exil sont diverses: fuir l’oppression, suivre un parent qui a trouvé du travail, rejoindre une mère déjà exilée depuis longtemps, quitter ses...