Roles Of Algerian Women In The Battle Of Algiers

Charlotte Xiaole Zeng

Three roles of Algerian women in The Battle of Algiers

In Gillo Pontecorvo’s film The Battle of Algiers, French want to control of Algeria, using different strategies to suppress Algerian. Algerian members of the FLN revolt against French colonial repression with persistence, organizing Algerian women to join in the independent fight. Algerian women are national heroines who serve as significant power for the FLN and Algerian people to fight against French colonialism, transporting military weapons, actively participating in the fight as remarkably efficient combatants, and highly smartly using feminine and maternal advantages to defeat enemies.
In The Battle of Algiers, Algerian women serve as ideal transporters to
A French soldier is trying to check an Algerian woman at a checkpoint, which separates Casbah and French area, the woman confidently shouts “Don’t touch me!” and “Keep your hand off me!” without fear (0:30:32-0:30:36). The soldier stops his search and says “Never touch [Algerian] women” to another soldier (0:30:38). The woman is very intelligent and confident, knowing the advantage of an Algerian female and escaping from the check. In addition, a woman who is not young and pretty does not look like a French woman, but she takes her son together to pass the checkpoint with a bomb during a tough period of the battle (0:46:25). Before this action, Jaffar hesitates about whether letting this old woman to start her revenge task because of her performance, but she says “I’ll take my son. It’ll work” (0:42:31). She knows that French soldiers will not suspect a mother with a child and they will not think a mother could carry a bomb as well as her child. Wisely using famines advantage as a weapon, an Algerian woman who simulates a French woman plays a trick with a French soldier at the French checkpoint (0:47:00). The woman with dyed blond hair and fantastic clothes carries a bomb in her bag, walking in the checkpoint area. A French soldier starts a conversation: “Going to the beach, Miss?” (0:46:48). She replies to the soldier with a smile: “How’d you know?” (0:46:49). She asks a question to the soldier instead of ending the conversation at that moment. “How’d you know?” indicates the woman actually plays a trick with the French man for enabling him to think that he is a wise man and knows everything and to meet his vanity. Then when the soldier knows he cannot go to “beach” with the woman this time, he asks “ Maybe another time” (0:47:00). The woman says “Who know?” (0:47:02). She is smart and knows