Days of Glory is the (unfortunate) English title of a French historical drama about World War II which premiered in 2006.
The original title Indigenes is more precise: Indigenes is the French word for indigenous or native people.
This drama is about a small group of men from North Africa, who volunteer to join the army and fight for France, even though they have ever been to this place.
Here are some basic facts about this drama:
** Directed by Rachid Bouchareb
** Produced by Jamel Debbouze and seven others
** Written by Rachid Bouchareb and Olivier Lorelle
** Released on DVD in 2008
** Run time: 120 minutes
The cast includes the following:
The first group
** Jamel Debbouze as Said Otmari
** Roschdy Zem as Messaoud Souni
** Sami Buajila as Abdelkader
** Sami Naceri as Yassir (older brother of Larbi)
** Assaad Bouab as Larbi (younger brother of Yassir)
The second group
** Bernard Blancan as Sergeant Roger Martinez (he is promoted in the drama)
** Mathieu Simonet as Corporal Leroux (he is promoted in the drama)
** Benoit Giros as Captain Durieux
** Aurelie Eltvedt as Irene – a French woman in Marseille
** Melanie Laurent as Margueritte – a French woman in a village in the Vosges Mountains
In this drama we follow a small group of men from North Africa, who volunteer to join the army and fight for France. They are from Morocco and Algeria. In 1943, when the story begins, these places were still part of the French colonial empire.
The drama is divided into eight chapters, some longer than others. Each chapter begins with an on-screen message which marks the time and the place.
Here is an overview:
Chapter # 1. Algeria, 1943
Chapter # 2. Morocco, 1943
Chapter # 3. Setif, 1943
Chapter # 4. Italy, 1944
Chapter # 5. Provence, August 1944
Chapter # 6. The Rhone Valley, October 1944
Chapter # 7. The Vosges Mountains, November 1944- January 1945
Chapter # 8. Alsace, 2004
This is not a traditional war movie where the troops go from one battle to the next. In fact, there are only two major battle scenes here.
The first in chapter # 4 in Italy and the second in chapter # 7 in the Vosges Mountains.
This drama is about soldiers from North Africa and their experiences while they are a part of the French army.
These men are fighting a war on two fronts: the first front is against the enemy, Nazi Germany. The second front is against the army in which they serve, the French army. They are not French citizens; they are citizens of France. The distinction is important and significant.
They were asked to fight for France, the motherland, and they are risking their lives to do it, but every step of the way they find that they are up against a wall of discrimination and racism:
** When food is being served, there are no tomatoes for them, only for the white soldiers.
** When white soldiers are allowed to go on leave, they are told there is no leave for them.
** When a soldier is promoted, it is almost always a white soldier, almost never a black soldier from North Africa.
In general, the North African troops are being used as cannon fodder. They are sent in first, because they are expendable.
If France must suffer some casualties, let the North African soldiers go first, so white soldiers can survive. They are, after all, more valuable!
The discrimination continued even after the war was over.
An on-screen message placed at the end of the drama explains that pensions for veterans from North Africa were frozen in 1959, while pensions for French soldiers continued to rise, year by year.
In 2002, a French court ordered the government to end the freeze, but succeeding governments refused to do so.
In 2006, when French President Chirac had watched this drama, he promised to do something about the problem. However, it was not until 2010 that the French government actually implemented a reform which makes sure that all veterans who fought for France will get the same pension, no matter if they are French citizens or not.
At that time, the difference between the frozen pension from 1959 and the pension that had been adjusted year by year was 1 to 10.
[For details about this issue, see John Lichfield, “After 65 years, France finally honours its colonial soldiers,” The Independent, 14 July 2010.]
The history of World War II has been told in many books and in many films. This drama has a new and interesting angle on the case.
What do reviewers say about it?
Here are some results:
70 percent = IMDb
82 percent = Meta
83 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
79 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
The famous movie critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013) offers 3.5 of 4 stars, which corresponds to 88 per cent.
The movie was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Movie for 2007, but it did not win.
On Amazon, there are at the moment 277 ratings of this product, 162 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.2 stars which corresponds to a rating of 84 percent.
The majority of reviews is positive: 80 percent offer four or five stars.
A small group of reviews is negative: Eight percent offer only one or two stars.
What – if anything – is wrong with it?
What do the negative voices have against it?
Some critics complain because it is a foreign movie. The soundtrack is French and Arabic. They have to read English subtitles and they do not like it.
These critics do not have a serious case. Having a soundtrack in French and Arabic makes this drama realistic. If the actors spoke English, or if the drama was dubbed into English, it would lose authenticity.
Other critics complain that there are not enough battle scenes. Since this is a movie about World War II, they want to see a major battle every five or ten minutes.
These critics do not have a serious case, either. They fail to understand that the North African soldiers are battling on two fronts.
When they are not fighting the Germans, they are up against the army in which they serve, because this army does not want to acknowledge their contribution to the war effort.
There is, in fact, a battle every five or ten minutes, but it is not a battle against the Germans; it is a battle against discrimination and racism practiced by the French army against some of its own soldiers.
But when these false arguments have been pushed aside, there is still something left. In my opinion, there are two serious flaws here. Let me explain:
# 1. The first flaw concerns the actor Jamel who plays the character Said. The actor has a handicap: when he was a teenager, he was involved in an accident which means that he has lost the use of his right arm.
He still has it, but he cannot use it. When we see him in the drama, he always has the right hand in his pocket. He is in effect a soldier with only one arm, with only one hand.
How can this be? How can the French army accept a soldier with such a handicap? It does not seem very realistic. Said carries a rifle. Why? It is almost impossible to fire a rifle with only one arm.
In the final battle he has a pistol, which he can fire with one hand, but what will he do when he runs out of bullets? How is he going to reload his pistol with only one hand?
There are several ways of looking at this issue.
One way is to say that the French needed every soldier they could get, so they were willing to accept even a man with an obvious handicap. However, if this is the case, I think the director should have used a few words and a few minutes to explain this. But this issue is never addressed in the movie.
Perhaps the director was hoping no one would notice. In fact, some reviewers have noticed and they claim it is very distracting.
Another way to look at this issue is to say that the actor Jamel is a famous actor in France, and this is why the director wanted to use him. He is a good actor. Let him be part of the cast. I agree. Let him be part of the cast, but why is the issue never addressed?
A third way to look at this issue is to point out that Jamel is one of the producers of the movie, so he can decide that he is part of the cast.
Jamel is well known in France. Many French viewers know about his handicap and perhaps they do not see it as a problem. But no matter how we look at this issue, I still think it should have been addressed.
As it is, the director and the cameramen try to hide it, even though it is obvious from the very first time we see him. And once you have noticed this handicap, it is highly distracting.
# 2. The second flaw concerns chapter # 4 about the campaign in Italy in 1944. North African troops played an important role in the battle of Monte Casino in that year.
When the battle was over, when the Germans had lost, North African troops raided several villages in the area. Hundreds of women were raped and when some men tried to protect them, they were killed.
There is an Italian word for what happened here, la marocchinate, which means “the Moroccan treatment.” Several villages were victims of this treatment.
The Italian author Alberto Moravia wrote a novel about the case – La ciociara - which was published in 1957.
A movie directed by Vittorio de Sica and based on the novel was released in 1960. The movie has the same title as the novel.
The English title Two Women refers to a mother and her daughter: the mother tries in vain to defend her daughter against the soldiers.
This episode should be highly relevant in a movie about North African soldiers who are fighting in Italy in 1944, but it is never mentioned. We can understand why.
It does not fit in here. It will disturb the message the director wants to send to us: the North African soldiers were good guys who fought bravely against the Germans and who suffered discrimination from their own officers.
A story of rape and violence against civilians in Italian villages has no place here.
But when it is left out, something significant is missing. We want to have the whole story, the whole truth, and not just the good side of the story.
Women appear two times in his movie.
The first one is Irene who meets Messaoud in Marseilles. In this case, the man is hesitant and reluctant, so the woman must take the lead.
The second case is Margueritte who meets Said in a village in the Vosges Mountains. In this case, Said steals a kiss and nothing else happens.
According to the movie, the North African soldiers never attacked any women. These two cases seem to be the director’s way of dealing with the issue.
I do not object to the two cases we have in the movie, but including them cannot make up for excluding the stories of “the Moroccan treatment.”
I must add one more complaint regarding the movie, but this time I cannot blame the director. The English title of the movie Days of Glory is most unfortunate.
The title implies something glorious is going on here, but this is not the case.
Who is responsible for the English title? I do not know. But I suspect whoever came up with this title did so without watching the movie.
Once you have seen this movie, you would never think of using the word “glorious” about it.
As stated earlier, the original French title is more precise. If this drama must have an English title, it could and should be something like Indigenous Soldiers.
I understand the message the director wants to send out and I agree with it. The North African soldiers fought for the French, and in return the French subjected them to discrimination and racism.
The French made promises to get them to fight, but when the fighting was done, they failed to keep their promises.
The North African soldiers were victims of an injustice and I think it is great that this aspect of the war is exposed in this movie.
But as you can see, there are some flaws which cannot be ignored. I have to remove two stars because of these flaws. This is why I think this product deserves a rating of three stars (60 percent).
PS. Black colonial soldiers made a large contribution to the war effort, but in 1944, when the liberation of Paris was planned, the Allied Forces made sure the operation would be implemented with white soldiers only.
Black colonial soldiers were not allowed to take part in this significant event.
For details about this aspect of the war, see the following items which are available online:
** John Lichfield, “Liberation of Paris: The hidden truth,” the Independent, 31 January 2007
** Mike Thomson, “Paris liberation made ‘whites only’,” BBC News, 6 April 2009
** Steven Johns, “The whitewashing of French forces in the liberation of Paris,” libcom.org, 24 August 2016
REFERENCE
Quand l’Afrique sauva la France
[When Africa Saved France]
A documentary film which premiered in 2022
** Director = Nicolas Glimois
** Historical consultant: Eric Jennings
** Run time = 52 minutes
This film is available on the website TV5 Monde Plus. The language is French, but subtitles are available in several languages:
** Arabic
** French
** English
** German
** Spanish
*****
Indigenes
A French historical drama
about World War II
which premiered
in 2006
*****
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