Last Friday I had a Film Streams double feature day: The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Reprise (2008). It is really crazy and eerie how relevant The Battle of Algiers is with regards to our current state of affairs in Iraq and the Middle East. Different place, same exact story. Too bad governments don’t seem to learn much from history (or art for that matter). The Defense Department actually screened the film in the Pentagon in 2004. That’s one discussion I would’ve loved to have sit in on.

Apparently the flyer promoting the screening read:

“How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.”

It’s a visceral and haunting film that still has great relevance today, and it achieves a rare level of feeling very real (hence the disclaimer before the film stating that no newsreel or documentary footage was used in the film).

Reprise is a Norwegian film made by a young director and former skateboarding champion, Joachim Trier. I really, really liked the movie. It is about a lot of things: art, ambition, confusion, friendship, the transition into adulthood (and avoiding that transition), love, sanity, self-invention, the public vs. private self, the fine lines between inspiration/genius and madness, identity, popular culture (and its intersection with identity – how books, movies, and music can help shape and define your identity or how you both judge and relate to others), time, aging (and fear of it, and conversely, youthfulness), commitment (and fear of it), selfishness and selflessness, and other issues that humans have been dealing with for a long time. It’s also a simple but engaging story about a group of friends at a particular time in their life.

The two main characters were subtle and engaging and played off each other really well, which was important since their friendship is the crux of the film. The movie is stylish and inventive, but I felt that its form didn’t get in the way of the story or emotion. There were times where I became pretty aware of the style, but it never crossed that line of feeling pretentious (though it was close at times), cheesy or that it was trying to hard. Basically, it’s a really interesting film that I would highly recommend seeing if you have the chance.

I’m heading back down to Film Streams tonight with my sisters to see Performance. I’ve wanted to see this film for awhile, so I’m really excited to be seeing it projected in a theatre.