Hors-la-loi by Rachid Bouchareb (review)

hijab. “We don’t know who is killing who,” they lament. Shortly thereafter in one of the film’s few violent scenes, men empty out of cars at a construction site shooting and slitting the throats of Croatian immigrant workers. When the authorities bring the news of the slaughter to the monastery, they strongly encourage the monks to accept their armed protection. Though visibly shaken, the monks refuse the offer. For the rest of the film, we follow each monk in his struggle to decide whether to stay or to leave the monastery. Ultimately, all decide to stay and all but two are killed, beheaded presumably by a terrorist group. Based on the true story of the Tibhirine monks who were abducted and murdered in Algeria in 1996 as the civil war was raging there, the film is not about really about the then current political situation in Algeria in which Algerian citizens could not be sure if Islamist fundamentalists or the military or government officials were responsible for the horrendous acts of violence being visited upon them. What is suggested in Des hommes et des dieux is that the fundamentalists, the military and the government all want the monks out of Algeria, probably because of the peaceful relationship the monks have been able to forge with the Muslim locals. What is also suggested is that the locals desperately want the monks to stay as these latter represent their only source of protection. As one local woman points out, the monks can choose to stay or to leave, but the locals have no such choice. And as one of the monks points out, staying is as crazy as becoming a monk was in the first place, but the fact is, in choosing to become monks, they’ve already accepted where God has brought them, so staying is the only real choice to make. Where God has brought them, one monk acknowledges , is partly due to where colonization has brought France. He writes: “I know I am an accomplice of the evil that will kill me.” In a way, Des hommes et des dieux constitutes an important examination of deep faith on the parts of both Christians and Muslims, and the need for forgiveness on the part of the French, communicated in a very quiet, thought-provoking, yet nonjudgmental way. Perhaps this explains the film’s immense popularity. Union College (NY) Michelle Chilcoat BOUCHAREB, RACHID, réal. Hors-la-loi. Int. Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila, Chafia Boudraa, Bernard Blancan. Tessalit, 2010. Four years after Indigènes (2006), Rachid Bouchareb returned with yet another tale of Franco-Algerian history. His latest feature, Hors-la-loi, covers the period 1945–62 and tells the story of Algerian people caught in a turning point of history . The film opens with a family that lost its land in 1925, then moves on to the tragic events of Sétif in 1945. While the French people demonstrated and celebrated their newly acquired freedom following the victory over Nazi Germany, locals in Algeria also demonstrated to claim independence. Later, in the Paris area, the three brothers, Abdelkader, Messaoud, and Saïd, became involved in the Algerian war, willingly or not. In Algeria as well as France, the mother, the sisters, and the neighbors were all affected by the events. No one could avoid the conflict. In the shantytown of Nanterre, families tried to survive in extreme conditions while the men got themselves organized. The FLN, MNA, and French police waged war on both lands at great human cost. Produced with considerable technical and financial means, Hors-la-loi was Reviews 613 partly financed by the Algerian and French governments, even though it dealt with extremely painful historical events shared by both nations. An interview of Rachid Bouchareb—an interesting DVD bonus—clarifies a couple of points. His primary goal was to entertain while exploring past events that touched him and his family closely. Much historical research and many interviews of knowledgeable natives were the basis for the story. However, the theme also offered him the opportunity to focus on the art of filmmaking—dialogues, decor, sound, makeup , etc., and Hors-la-loi is a work...