Intimate Enemies (2007)

The Worst Film Ever

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

INTIMATE ENEMIES 2007 This French film from 2007 is one of the better films I've seen about the The French-Algerian War. This conflict started in 1954 and continued till 1962.The French had just lost a war over a colony with the fight for Indo-China. They were determined not to lose another. The Algerian FLN fought a largely guerrilla war from the countryside. The French responded in kind with small unit teams combing the country. The war was known to be quite brutal with torture etc being used by both sides. The conflict was as much of a Civil War as it was an attempt to hold a colony. Many Algerians sided with the French and fought in French Army units.This film starts out in the summer of 1959 in the inland mountains. A French platoon is based at an outpost charged with keeping the peace in the surrounding villages. They go out every day on patrol hunting groups of FLN guerrillas. Every so often they ambush the enemy and every so often they are ambushed. The war seems to be one long battle of attrition.After the platoon Lieutenant is killed in a botched operation, the unit receives a fresh officer right out of France. The new man, Benoît Magimel, is soon in conflict with the unit's veteran Sergeant, Albert Dupontel. Dupontel, who had been in Vietnam fighting the Viet Cong, knows one has to be as hard as the enemy is. The Lieutenant learns quickly when the platoon gets in a battle with a FLN group smuggling weapons. The FLN had all been dressed as women and had nearly gotten by the patrol till the veteran, Dupontel, spotted the deception.The following weeks sees the platoon engaged in several firefights with various FLN groups. During one of these fights, the French come close to being wiped out. They need to call in air support which hit the FLN with some large napalm bombs. Afterwards the patrol captures a man for questioning. The local intelligence officer is soon at work with batteries and electric cables. This of course does not go well with the new officer, Magimel. The method though proves effective and valuable information is collected.Every night the men at the outpost get stinking drunk and count the days till they get back to France. When one of the patrols finds a friendly village massacred, they respond in kind on another village. The war is boiling down to one bloody event leading into another. Needless to say there is not going to be a happy ending here.This film is well worth looking up in my opinion. The cinematography is excellent and the battle scenes well handled. The air support action is top-flight with De Havilland Vampire aircraft dropping the napalm.

L'Ennemi Intime is simply a non-movie. What does it take to dish out such an unidentifiable cinematographic object? Producer blindness, too proud to see the vacuum in the project, too proud to have it challenged by some trustworthy colleague.L'Ennemi Intime first (digital) shot sets it all : it is not linked with the beginning of narration and the only purpose is to have the movie title pompously emerge from the horizon. Let's forget it. What's the story? A French platoon is stuck in the middle of The Undeclared War in Algeria. It's not really that they are stuck but there's a sensation they're alone to fight an (oh so) absurd war. Actually they are the French colonial power struggling against the ever elusive rebel forces who will fight to death for their freedom, for Algerian independence.The subtext is clear if you know this part of History, yet the political aspect is buried under the makeshift of a script, I mean the episodic screenplay... well, let's say it more bluntly: the treatment in pictures.Would you believe the storyline is only made of a series of missions that are loosely connected (fight the rebels round the corner)? What else? Nothing. The pitched opposition between the idealistically young Lieutenant and the experienced tough Sergeant is not an opposition, only an easy-going working relationship. Lieutenant Terrien (Magimel) is a bland character with no character arc whatsoever, Sergeant Dougnac (Dupontel) is basically more interesting but nothing interesting happens to him after the opening sequence before Terrien is brought in to helm the bunch.Except for a couple of French-Algerian characters there's almost nobody to root for. The absence of story is all the more palpable as locations are great and the cinematography is excellent. In the end there's a gigantic gap between the graphical aspirations of the director and the inaction imposed over by the script.Obviously the idea was to team up a promising director (Siri) who would deliver the images and a documentary screenwriter (Rotman) who would deliver the contents (historical and controversial yet accurate). The problem is Siri is light on screen-writing and only understands action while Rotman is overwhelmed by his historical knowledge and doesn't know how to write fiction (i.e. loosen the ties of historical accuracy to tell an engaging story featuring interesting fictional characters).BOTTOM LINE. Cinematography and locations: excellent. All the rest is not worth watching.

L'Ennemi Intime is a good attempt at portraying the Algerian War and its complexities. It is undoubtedly a gritty movie, with grittier colors, and even grittier characters... I came feeling gritty myself, and uneasy, which means that in my case the film did have a certain impact. However, the story-that of an idealistic lieutenant facing the realities of war and his reaction-was, in my opinion, weak. Filmed mostly from the French soldiers' point of view, the film was too simplistic and predictable, and its characters are unidimensional and bland, and ultimately unconvincing. The only difference in this film is that it is about the Algerian War. Whereas it is not your average hero-triumphs war movie, it is your average innocent-discovers-horror war movie. It is not as deep and good as Chronique des Annees de Braise, and is miles from the provocatively brilliant, and highly-recommended Bataille d'Alger.

I have just seen L'ennemi intime, a film about a young lieutenant during the Algeria war in 1959. A few films have already been shot about that war (L'honneur d'un capitaine, La bataille d'Alger, etc.) but this one is the best. At least it will change the way films are made on this matter. The actors are good, the images beautiful, the action very well done. And the film show the atrocities from both side (and that's quite rare actually, usually in France you have the "bad French" against the "nice fellous"). This film has the quality of Platoon or Apocalypse now. I only give 8/10 because of the end, not perfect. But it's a must seen film.