"INTIMATE ENNEMIES"

This “strong and silent type” French film almost didn’t make the list. Not because I don’t like it, quite au contraire, but I wasn’t sure how much it would appeal to you guys for some reason. I don’t know, French war movie about the Algerian war, set at the height of the operations in 1959… But I watched it for the second time for work today. And I cried my eyes out. Again. So I just had to share it with you.
Lieutenant Terrien has a tough job ahead of him. He is an industrial designer by trade and a happily married father of one but he has volunteered for the war in Algeria. He is stepping into a dead Lieutenant’s shoes. Apart from having these shoes to fill, the clashes with the rebels / resistance are getting more and more brutal. His sergeant Dougnac is a sullen and silent man, but he soon shows Terrien that he knows the area and their job a lot better than he does. Terrien is shocked at first by the area, by the mentality of the soldiers and the sheer “horror” (remember Apocalypse Now? If you didn’t get what “The Horror” meant then, you will now I promise you) of proceedings. He is unable to understand Dougnac’s apparent coldness and callousness. But soon, both him and we realize that the true enemies that are the hardest to conquer lie not in some mountain range but deep within our own souls…
This film is not a happy one. It is definitely a “disclaimer” film. I mean, ok, I’m guessing you expect violence. But this isn’t “Saving Private Ryan” type violence. It is a lot deeper and hard-hitting than that. And it is not horrifying in its scale - we are not talking about people dying in their hundreds – but in its meaning. All through the film we are given no respite about the psychological suffering of soldiers at war. And I don’t mean just the French soldiers either, you must remember there were a lot of Algerians fighting alongside them as well… We are reminded that war Is a tragedy, and just sometimes it is a pointless tragedy. We are reminded that this violence effects the ones who witness it and sometimes leaves incurable scars. And of course, the politics. Terrien lays out the arguments of the film within the first half-hour – basically the fact that the de Gaulle government was very much to blaim for the Algerian war. But when it comes to the brutalities that went on there, we are forced to admit, that if we were in Terrien’s – or any of the characters – shoes, we probably would not have, in fact could not have acted in any other way…
My memory is pretty good and I remember pretty much all the plot twists quite clearly. But I could not hold back the tears as I watched Terrien slowly crack and turn into something he despised (and I know this is sort of a spoiler but I’m guessing you saw this coming, no?). You will not find it easy viewing at all. But then again, some things don’t come in pretty packages and yet they are true and beautiful…