Director: Rachid Bouchareb

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. This film examines the three pillars on which the French Republic stands through the eyes of soldiers summoned from its colonies to fight a war for liberalising a people, while enjoying few of those rights themselves.

Put into the worst of battles towards the end of World War II, with the least compensation in terms of money, promotion, leave or even rationed tomatoes, soldiers from France’s colonies in North Africa — particularly Algeria — fight a cold, brutal war and die an unknown death. The government they are fighting for feels no need to understand their religion, needs or culture.

In a great scene, after one hard-fought battle, the tired African soldiers are offered a “treat”: ballet in a torn tent. Uncomprehending and disgusted, they walk out.

Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Oscars and the Golden Palm at Cannes, Days of Glory has some exceptional performances by its lead actors, who have all enlisted in the war for their own reasons. There is the scholarly and brave Corporal Abdelkadar (Bouajila), who clings to the belief till the very end that the fight against Hitler is his fight; Said (Debbouze), who aims to find reason and hope in his life, led till then in utter poverty, in a place he realises has none of it; Messaoud (Zem), who discovers love in the unlikeliest of places; and Sergeant Martinez (Blancan), a Frenchman in Algeria who is part African, a secret he takes to his grave, constantly torn between the men he knows are being mistreated and his bosses who couldn’t care less.

After defeating the Axis powers in Italy, when the Algerian infantry marches into France, it is the first time they set foot on what they have been told is their “motherland”. The message is reinforced through martial songs, in speeches, and exhortations to march to yet another battle.

From a small dusty village in Algeria, illiterate and swept up in all that’s happening around him, Said has figured it out for himself more clearly. Describing a battle scene, he says: “I threw a bomb at Germany, I beat Germany, all of Germany— I free a country, it is my

country. Even if I haven’t seen it before.”

At the time, he is staring into the eyes of a woman hanging on to his every word, willing to believe anything the soldier of a winning army has to say. The words, you realise, are not for her. Before he marches to a certain death, it’s Said’s prayer, for himself.

P.S.: The film ends with a note that as its colonies gained independence, France froze the pensions for all its former soldiers at the pre-1959 level despite court orders. That has since changed, thanks to Days of Glory. After then French president Jacques Chirac saw this film, he fully restored the pensions.