Both these films once again showed me the power of cinema to take us on a journey to places we never even knew existed, leaving us changed by the end of the screening.

* * * * *

Der Freie Wille (The Free Will) follows the life of Theo Stoer (played by Jurgen Vogel) after his release from 7 years of psychiatric detention for raping 3 women. Here is a man who tries very hard to overcome his past and to fit in again to society. Besides the problem of finding work, the biggest difficulty he faces is his insecurity when it comes to relationships with women. He does not know how to initiate conversation and is constantly terrified of flipping to his old aggressive self. Every day, he has to ward off his demons in loneliness.

But Nettie (Sabine Timoteo), whom at first he wasn't interested in, turns out to be the one who falls in love with him, and he with her. She isn't aware of his past until later, but when it comes out, does she still stand by him? Does he want her to, when it'll be such a burden on her own life?

It may be controversial to say so, but even rapists are human, and this film takes us into their minds and their experience of the world; at the same time, the brutality of their crimes is not played down. One is constantly torn between feeling for Theo's victims and feeling for him. It also takes us into Nettie's heart -– what do we do when the person we love is a felon, ostracised by society and prone to recidivism? What will we do for him? What will we do for ourselves? What will we feel?

* * * * *

On Saturday, I saw I love Malaya, a  production by four young Singaporeans who were intrigued by Chin Peng's civil suit against the Malaysian government for denying him re-entry into Malaysia. Chin Peng was the leader of the now-disbanded Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

As part of the 1989 peace settlement between the Kuala Lumpur government and the MCP, the ex-guerillas, who had been based in the jungles of southern Thailand for decades, were promised the right of return. However, the government has refused to provide passports to some leaders of the MCP. 

Since Chin Peng declined to be interviewed for the film, the filmmakers set out to document the lives of others likewise stranded in Thailand. The result is an interesting look into their feelings of home and belonging, anachronistic though their ideas may seem to us.

* * * * *

Then on Monday night, some old friends and I decided to catch a movie together. We had a choice of Happy Feet and Casino Royale (Dir. Martin Campbell), starring Daniel Craig in his first appearance as James Bond. One of my friends, Sam, didn't want to spend time on "animated penguins and glib voice-overs", so we went for Casino Royale. It was enjoyable, but it doesn't merit any discussion here, not when 48 hours later, Indigènes seized me.

* * * * *

Indigènes (the English title is Days of Glory -– what a poor choice!) follows a handful of North Africans enlisted into the French Army in 1943.

At the time, France was under Nazi occupation, but plans were afoot to invade Nazi-occupied territories, starting with its soft underbelly, Mussolini-ruled Italy. The only problem was that General De Gaulle wanted a French Army to fight alongside the British and the Americans for the liberation of Europe -- this was essential to ensuring a place for France at the victors' table -– when there was no way for him to raise an army from his Nazi-occupied country. Hence the recruiters trawled the French colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to raise the army of 200,000. Of these, 110,000 were Muslim, Arabic-speaking North Africans, and another 20,000 were Black Africans., e.g. from Senegal. This was the French Army that would liberate the "motherland".

The film follows illiterate Said Otmari (played by Jamel Debbouze), politically-aware Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila) and besotted Messaoud Souni (Roschdy Zem) through most of 1944 as they fought their way from Italy, through Provence, up the Rhone valley to the Vosges mountains of Alsace.

They are led by Sergeant Martinez (Bernard Blancan) and Corporal Leroux (Mathieu Simonet). The latter character is native French (perhaps pied-noir [1]), but the sergeant hides a big secret, which I'll come to later.

The key battles in the film are based on true events, but Indigènes is not a war film. It's a disruptive social and political interrogation.

Every now and then, the native French generals and colonels would rally the men with appeals to seeing "home" and the "motherland" free again. They'd break out in clarion calls of "Liberté, Fraternité et Egalité". But where is home, where is "motherland" for these men? What is the meaning of those slogans when promotions and home leave are denied to North and Black Africans while the White French are favoured?

"There are not enough ships" to take them back to see their families, goes the official excuse.

"But there are enough ships to take us here," mutter the North African enlistees.

The men are not even given the same rations: the juicy red tomatoes in the mess hall are not for them.

Messaoud meets a French girl as their regiment passes through Marseilles and they fall in love. But their letters to each other are stopped by the military post office, with the result that each thinks that the other has been insincere, for never writing back. You are left in no doubt that the censorship was because such cross-cultural relationships were not encouraged.

There are even suggestions that the officer corps was callous about putting the men's lives at risk, saving on supporting artillery fire until  the North African infantry's casualties begin to mount. Yet the foot soldiers fight on through the campaign, starting out as raw, accident-prone recruits, becoming in the process battle-hardened fighters, with many losing their lives along the way.

So what do they think about liberating "their" country? Faced with this question put in a rhetorical way, one of the men replies, "Well, if we liberate a country, then it's ours."

After the war, many would have eagerly gone back home to Africa though some of them would have stayed on in France. But 60 years on, in the autumn of 2005, the Arab suburbs of Paris exploded in anger. The grandchildren of these soldiers and immigrants still don't feel fully accepted.

Indigènes asks what it means to be a second-class citizen called upon to fight for a country; what it means when a country chooses to discriminate against those who would fight and die to save it from invaders.

It asks us to consider how the dominant class assumes without a moment's reflection that subalterns think and feel like they do, how their sense of identity and ideals must necessarily be the latter's as well.

There is also the matter of the gruff, somewhat taciturn Sergeant Martinez who earns his men's respect because they see that he knows his profession and he treats them all fairly, even if sternly.

He can also be compassionate, taking in Said Otmari as his orderly seeing that this young Moroccan has a bad right arm. Said in turn proves loyal and fond of the sergeant. As his orderly however, Said accidentally discovers Martinez' secret -– that while everybody thinks he is native French, or at least European, he is in fact of Arab ancestry too. Martinez is passing off as French or pied-noir to safeguard his career, or perhaps for other reasons as well. However, on learning that Said has discovered his secret, the sergeant explodes at him.

Indigènes does not ask viewers to take either Martinez' or Said's side, but to try to understand what pushes people to conceal and deny some immutable fact of birth in order to sidestep discrimination in an intolerant world; at the same time to understand how betrayed someone like Said feels, both at the personal level, as well as towards his sense of identity and national solidarity.

At a press conference, director Rachid Bouchareb, who himself is French of Algerian ancestry, said, "the cinema is a vehicle for encounters and emotions, perceived by audiences first as feelings, even if it gives them more to discover. It was only in this way that I could carry the story and create a tie with the audience. I didn't want to be didactic, which serves nothing."

He was meticulous. "We developed the screenplay over two and a half years. We needed 25 versions to be able to step beyond history and concentrate on the human subject matter, on all the tiny details of daily life which reflect life far better than any speech."

On the difficulties with historical accuracy: "I felt a certain pressure, because this subject has never been dealt with before in the cinema until now. I was afraid that certain scenes and anecdotes weren't accurate, historically speaking. With this film, I wished to leave behind an irreproachable testimony as to what might have taken place during this war."

Director Rachid wanted to "to show that we were an integral part of the history of France, we belong to this country's past. This film is a bearer of a sensitivity which takes on energy and strength in historical cinema. It aims at widening the history of France by opening a new chapter."

Samy Naceri, who played Yassir, one of the Moroccan soldiers, recalled: "I had never heard about them at school, I didn't realise that 'Pieds-Noirs', Jews and North Africans had defended France... It isn't a vindictive picture, nor political. But those in school should learn that these North Africans were the first to fall under German bullets for the liberation of Marseilles, Toulon and Corsica."

Getting funding however, was no bed of roses.

Jamel Debbouze, who played Said in the film, but was also the co-producer, recalled the difficulties: "On the one hand, we come up with budgets in the several million euros to produce comedies where audiences want to see me slipping on banana peels, and on the other hand, I see that a project such as Rachid's was non-stop revised downwards. France still has difficulty in coping with its own past."

But I, for one, didn't see it as merely historical. Equally, Indigènes speaks of the present. Countries still discriminate against their own citizens, yet still demand that these citizens should fight and die if need be for the "motherland". Dominant classes still assume that others see the world the way they do, with the usual tragedies of misunderstanding and conflict.

© Yawning Bread