'Battle' gets fine treatment

The scary thing about watching Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers" is just how familiar everything in it appears. For a nearly 40-year-old film chronicling the Algerian fight for independence from French colonization, its depictions of guerilla warfare and suicide bombings are starkly reminiscent of the evening news.\nPontecorvo skillfully recreates the 1957 resistance through the eyes of Ali La Pointe, the leader of a terrorist group which violently disrupts Algeria's French occupiers at every opportunity. Neither side, however, is portrayed as good or bad, and instead the film focuses on the blood, horror and ugliness of war. \nIt accomplishes that with a painful realism. The French are at times shown as ruthless torturers, and the Algerian resistance fighters' bombings are depicted fully, with emphasis on both the attack and the resulting loss of innocent life. The three-disc set, released as part of the Criterion Collection's impressive series of important pieces of cinema, is worthy of the film it contains. In addition to a new high-definition transfer of the 1965 film, the set contains seven different full-length documentaries. Topics run the gamut from a return to the streets of Algeria with Pontecorvo 30 years later to a making of the featurette to a panel discussion about the film with directors Spike Lee, Steven Soderberg, Oliver Stone and others. A photo gallery and theatrical trailers are also included. \nThe extras are impressive, but the film alone is worth the hefty price tag ($49.95). In an age of terrorism and resistance fighting, a film that honestly examines and defines both its reasons and repercussions is at least worth a look.