Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Robert J. Maxwell The story of a handful of Berber tribesmen from Algeria who enlist in the French Army during World War II and slog their way through North Africa, Italy, France, and Alsace in order to rid the world of Nazi occupiers. There are several effective scenes of combat and the ending somewhat resembles that of "Saving Private Ryan". Man, they are a rag tag bunch too. They always look dirty, their uniforms tatty and irregular, and they always need a shave. Their equipment looks like it was bought in a dollar store. The men wear helmets that are variously British, American, and French.There is also a subtext. The North African troops, including their French leaders, are looked down upon by the native French troops. And, on top of that, the Berbers face prejudice because they are swarthy, sometimes illiterate, and speak French with an accent, their native language being Arabic.I'm not sure there's very much new in the story. We follow half a dozen men as they suffer deaths, failed loves, and internal conflicts. The strongest performance -- possibly because it's one of the most carefully written -- is that of Bernard Blancan as the French sergeant who heads the platoon. He looks like one of the villainous chumps one might find in a Laurel and Hardy short but his character is complex. He treats the Berber recruits with disdain and does everything possible to hide the fact that his mother was an Arab.The photography and location shooting are mostly pretty gloomy and there's little in the way of light-hearted humor. Everyone seems rather sad even the two pretty young French ladies, of whom we should have seen more. There's a touching scene in which a girl in Marseilles takes one of the men up to her room. She strips. He hesitates, his shirt half off. She asks what's wrong and he tells her that where he comes from men like him are not allowed to be with French girls.I understand the Algerian's nationalism but I'm not sure that what it led to after the war was such a marvelous improvement. However, it's all over now.

thethundersd The days of glory illustrate a part of the history during the World War 2, when the French resistance commanded by general De Gaulle gathered a new army to fight with the allies, this new army was called 'les indigènes', they were men recruited from the countries occupied by the French empire.The movie shows how they participate in the liberation of the French Republic from the Nazis, and how during the war they suffered from injustice inside the army, they were "under feeded, not well dressed and not well trained" comparing to the French soldiers, in spite of they struggled believing the day of liberty is close.The idea to tell the story of those called 'les indigènes' was great, but not well exposed, the scenario and the emotions were poor, the whole movie was about the North African soldiers (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), especially the Algerian ones, certainly because of the background of the director who is originally from Algeria.The good thing about the movie was the music which was very interesting and very expressive, and the performance of the actors, great combination between the French language and the Arabic language.It is a nice movie after all, because it shows a historical reality unknown by many persons.--http://theearthdiary.blogspot.com/

Theo Robertson There's two types of French film . 1 ) The sort that is beloved by Cahiers Du Cinema that often feature people standing about talking about existentialist themes and often don't find a market outside France 2 ) The sort that is despised by Cahiers Du Cinema that often feature action and plot and appeal to an international market DAYS OF GLORY is certainly in the second camp . The problem is that it's a bit too international . The theme of colonial soldiers fighting for the mother country could have easily have featured British dominion troops fighting in the Boer war , of Indian troops fighting at El Alamein or even of black Americans fighting in the second world war . Some people on this page have criticised this movie as not being a Gallic version of GLORY and you can see their point . There's little in the way of an idiosyncratic voice Worse still despite the subtitles you could easily be watching a war film that was made in Hollywood . Much of the plot could have easily been lifted from Sam Fuller's THE BIG RED ONE as the story jumps from North Africa , Italy and eventually France . It's also impossible not to notice that the final climatic battle owes a lot to the climax of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN . Perhaps that's why DAYS OF GLORY received high praise down to its familiar story that English speaking fans of war films have seen so many times before ?It could have been much worse though . On a technical level it's a competent enough movie and it doesn't go overboard that the Goumier troops are some how slaves press-ganged in to joining the Free French forces but it does effectively ignore the sometimes horrendous reputation Goumier troops had in Axis territories where women are concerned . The 1960 Italian film TWO WOMEN goes in to this in detail and you can imagine that's why the protagonists service in Italy is skated over very slightly . One wonders if the producers might have been worried about an international audience being alienated by bringing up the subject in any length ? As it it stands DAYS OF GLORY is a good enough war film though very traditional

richard-leiper-1 Jamel was an unfortunate choice to play an active front line soldier, given his right arm injury which was obvious from the very start of the movie. Apart from that his performance is the most wooden performance of all the players in a plot that does not seem to take off into the action promised in the sleeve claims! The dialogue and especially the rhetoric of the colonel encouraging the men before they go into battle smacks more of a late forties Russian war film than something from the 21st century. As a vehicle to portray the injustices suffered by the French colonial troops it did manage to go a little along that way, it was especially touching to see the Berbers (Yassir and his mates)unused to the cold in the snow of the Vosges with only sandals on their feet.