History influenced معركة الجزائر (The Battle of Algiers)

Pontecorvo made it three years after the war ended, in the city where it happened, with people who had been in it. Saadi Yacef, an FLN commander during the Battle of Algiers, produced the film and played a version of himself. From the record: the FLN cell structure, the bombing campaign of 1956 and 1957, the French paratroopers under Massu, the checkpoints, the strike, and the use of torture as a system rather than an excess. The film is famous for refusing to resolve: it shows the FLN planting bombs in civilian cafes and the French breaking men to find the next cell, and gives neither side a speech that settles it. It was banned in France for five years and is still shown to militaries and insurgents alike.