Popular reviews

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★

  Historically significant! Thought Provoking! A war story that deserves recognition!

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  Review by Sol ★★★

  Days of Glory (Indigènes) is a French film directed by Rachid Bouchareb. It portrays the contribution of the North African soldiers to the Free French Forces during the Second World War and also, about the discrimination against them.

  Set in 1943, in French North Africa, a large numbers of men were recruited into the First French Army of the Free French Forces to fight alongside the other allies against Nazi Germany and liberate France from occupation. The army consists of two main groups: pieds-noirs, who are people of mostly European descent, and indigenous people, those of mostly African descent. The "indigenous", in turn, are made up of three main groups: Algerians, Moroccans (known as goumiers), and sub-Saharan African troops.

  The…

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  Review by Filmbantha ★★½

  During World War Two, France's forces were bolstered by the assistance of North African troops, many of whom laid down their lives for a country they had never been to. Days of Glory explores the bigotry and discrimination these valiant men were exposed to by following the lives of four recruits eager to prove themselves to their French brethren.

  The story told in Days of Glory is an important one though it is mired in cliches and spends too much time amongst bickering soldiers at the expense of the battle scenes many will expect from a war film. These raw recruits make a miraculous transformation into seasoned fighters by the end of the film, though we only ever see them…

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  Review by Cedric B.

  Indigenes is an important film insofar as it personifies the often indiscernible and understated difference between tone and mood. Although it’s a distinction more commonly made when observing literature, nevertheless, it is crucial towards defining the director’s role, specifically their contribution (or lack thereof) in terms of personality. In regards to Indigenes, it represents this distinction simply because tone is nearly nonexistent in the film, and by extension, neither is a personality behind the camera. Instead, stylistic--and I use this term very loosely--choices are reserved for creating a mood, or a guide to how the audience should feel. The sole exception to this, of course, is the final battle scene, in which the two sides of this coin are flipped--and…

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  Review by Andy Nelson ★★★★

  This is a touching portrayal of a group of African soldiers and their regiment serving in the French army during WWII that's at its best when it's portraying the horrors of war and the inequities these soldiers faced when promised equity over and over again. I'm always interested in new views on WWII and this gave me that with a handful of characters that I found absolutely fascinating. They each had their flaws and struggles, but they stuck together until the end. It's an interesting bit of history that pulls back from the war cemeteries and brings these men to life. As always, the prejudicial views at the time are as frustrating as they are now and I'm not sure things are getting any better. This is a film worth seeing to learn about this small but important part of WWII.

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  Review by Jeffrey Overstreet ★★★

  After reading through the reviews that came in for Indigènes in 2006, I feel a bit like the soldier who, early in the film, takes a box full of fresh red tomatoes and stomps them into mush.

  But for all of the good intentions here — yes, one of art's noblest purposes is to illuminate the injustices of history — Rachid Bouchareb's film feels uninspired and overburdened by its own righteous cause. The battle scenes are ambitiously but unimaginatively staged; they feel obligatory, and they prevent the slower storytelling stretches from doing more than scratching the surfaces of complicated questions.

  These solemn characters seem disgruntled by their own inability to become something more than simple sketches. One has a tattoo…

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  Review by bbbgtoby ★★★

  Part 25 of the 30 Countries project.

  For the purposes of this project this movie is classed as at least partially being of Algerian origin as per its listing on imdb.

  Indigenes: Colonial African soldiers who fought for France in World War II.

  With a similar structure to Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One Rachid Bouchareb's Oscar nominated war movie is less a statement on the folly of war but a political picture about the mistreatment of these Indigenes by the French. It's the same old racist story told again and again and it does get any less galling, each injustice feels as fresh and offensive as if it was the first time and it is that power that caused…

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  Review by reese!! ★★½

  all quiet on the western front: racism edition

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  Review by Doc Cortex ★★★★

  It's hard to understand why this is such an enjoyable film. On the face of it, it's a relatively standard war film, based on the exploits North African soldiers drafted into the French army to liberate France in the Second World War.

  The first three quarters of the film tells the story of four of these Algerian men, from enlisting, through first combat and detailing the relationships they develop. It's flat, standard fare enlivened only by the laudable but at times clumsy and less than subtle illustratration of the various inequalities and exploitations of the North African soldiers compared to their french counterparts. The acting especially by the likes of Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila is understated and…

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  Review by blythe ★½

  the kind of story this is telling is important but like,,,, i just cannot get myself to like war movies or care about them at all

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  Review by tyler ★★★½

  “When I score, I am French. When I don’t, I am an Arab.” Karim Benzema

  Pretty solid movie about an outfit of North African soldiers who sign up to kick the Nazis out of France. They do well, the French do not do well by them.

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  Review by uncledan85 ★★★½

  I have to say that I hate the English title of this film, which misses the point entirely and creates false expectations about what the movie is about. The title sounds like it could have come from a 60s John Wayne movie but instead it's a historical look at the underappreciated service of Maghrebi and African soldiers to the Free French cause. "Indigènes" the original title, refers to "natives" as the common term from French officers to refer to them and the movie explores their motivations to fight and die for a country that said it was theirs but never truly was.

  The ensemble of characters each have different motivations and paths, some join out of duty, some join for…