Days of Glory (Indigenes)

Starring: Bernard Blancan, Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Aurelie Eltvedt, Benoit Giros

Directed by: Rachid Bouchareb

RS: 3.5of 4 Stars

2007 The Weinstein Company All Movies

Algeria's pick in the Oscar race for Best Foreign-Language film is a wounding indictment of discrimination in the trenches. Indigenes (the French title, meaning "Natives") is set during the last years of World War II. Equality and fraternity fell by the wayside when it came to the North African soldiers who joined France in fighting the Nazis through Italy and Provence. These Algerian Arabs were merely straw dogs to their bigoted French superiors. Director and co-writer Rachid Bouchareb, born in Paris to Algerian immigrants, knows these racial tensions are still simmering. And in this wallop of a war movie he makes you feel the heat. The superb cast, including Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Roshdy Zem, Samy Naceri and Bernard Blancan, who plays their sergeant, shared the Best Actor prize in Cannes. The tribute is apt and inspiring. And there's more icing on the cake. Bouchareb's film helped shame the French government into raising pensions for more than 80,000 of these veterans. Here's that rare movie that really did change things. I'll be damned.