Days of Glory
Directed by Rachid Bouchareb
Opens Fri., March 2

The French, currently posturing as restrained and civil in matters of global conflict, i.e, Iraq, actually have a recent and rather dark history as colonialists. Their occupation of Vietnam helped precipitate what went on to become a nightmare. But their most questionable actions took place in Algeria, a country they entered in 1830, contributing to the racial and religious unrest that plagues France today.

With Days of Glory, director Rachid Bouchareb lifts the shroud off a past that has never received its due in history’s crowded hall of infamy. He unwinds his tale of injustice by focusing on conflicted North African soldiers as they fight for what they call the “Mother Country,” France, during World War II.

The parallels to African-American soldiers fighting in that same war are striking. Like those GIs, these men came from an oppressed population suffering the full spectrum of indignities. Yet the opportunity to fight for and gain the rights of citizenship in the offending population nonetheless held great appeal.

Unlike the movies depicting Black servicemen in the Second World War, Days of Glory allows for a breadth of personalities among the Algerians soldiers, still politically inviable in America.

For one, the character Said could never pass the stereotype muster here. Said does not aspire to rank, even the lowest one. An assiduous footservant to the platoon’s European’s sergeant, he makes sure the NCO’s shirts are clean and pressed, and his coffee, even in the battlefield, is hot and ready. And while his surface behavior belies a complex and principled character, in the parlance of American racial politics he is an Uncle Tom.

Messaoud, the lady’s man, seen as a handsome liberator by the French women, inspires interracial coupling regarded as undesirable by his commanders. The passions of his comrade Abdelkader are given to war; he envisions a promotion to Sergeant, a reverie as fanciful as Messaoud’s obsession of reuniting with a French woman with whom he has fallen in love.

The pivotal point of this story arrives when the North Africans, always seen as expendable, are asked to take on a perilous mission. As they embark, the possibility of deserting arises. What do they owe France? In a moving moment, rationality gives way to the more elemental considerations of shame and dignity.

The film, the outcome of Bouchareb’s desire to spotlight the contributions of the 135,000 North African veterans, does not suffer from the moralizing that so often accompanies films with a cause. The drama is built on the incongruent imperatives of soldiers fighting to win a home rather than protect one, a narrative that proves sustainable, if not spectacular.