Introduction
L’ennemi intime is a 2007 film by Florent Emilio Siri that is arguably the most direct, open portrayal of the Algerian war, certainly up until its debut. Of all the films in this study, it is the one filmed most conventionally in the war movie genre, save perhaps Indigènes. The style in which it is shot, from camera angles to the narrative of the film, is reminiscent of American productions such as Platoon, Casualties of War and Full Metal Jacket. The two main differences between L’ennemi intime and those American films are the nationality of the soldiers and the geographical settings. A New York Times critic observed: ““Intimate Enemies” is a movie you’ve seen before, when it was set on the Apache reservation or in the Vietnamese jungle”
(Hale). The similarity is not by happenstance. Siri explained in an interview that he and Benoît Magimel (the actor who plays the main character) were both heavily influenced by American war films:
Benoît et moi nous faisons partie de cette génération que des films sur la Guerre du Vietnam comme Apocalypse Now, Platoon ou Voyage au bout de l'enfer35 ont marquée à
35 Voyage au bout de l’enfer is the French-given name for ‘The deer hunter’ (Cimino 1979).
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vie. Et je me suis toujours demandé pourquoi on n'en faisait pas en France sur la Guerre d'Algérie, sauf rares exceptions. (“L’ennemi intime”)36
Although the principal shooting took place in Morocco, this film takes the viewer the deepest inside of Algeria geographically and culturally. The narrative is also the farthest removed from French civilisation.
Patrick Rotman wrote the script for L’ennemi intime, basing it upon a documentary by the same name that he also penned. This documentary is chiefly based on veteran accounts and interviews (Branche “L’ennemi intime” 117). Rotman is a professional historian who has worked for over 25 years on the Algerian war and collaborated with renowned filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier for the production of the 2002 documentary. When Siri and Magimel approached him to script a fictional war film based on his research, Rotman decided to create his main characters as composites of real people. These composite characters are based on the material from the documentary that contained personal experiences of persons who served in Algeria or lived through the war. Rotman and Siri believed strongly that this war was both a civil war as much as a colonial conflict because both regarded the Algerians as legitimately French, and the fighting as taking place between French citizens. The first scene of the film elucidates this point of view by showing us that the Algerian war was in a way eight years of ‘friendly fire’, of French killing other French.
L’ennemi intime explores the effects that the war has on the individual French combatant on a more personal level. It is not as apologetically upfront concerning the war as Mon colonel.
Mon colonel provides protagonists who may be easily characterized as stereotypes or symbols of
36 “Benoît and I are part of this generation that films about the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon and The deer hunter have marked for life. And I had always asked myself why in France we didn’t make any about the Algerian War, with some rare exceptions” (translation by me).
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sections of the French population. As its title proclaims, L’ennemi intime is self-reflective on a more intimate and individual level. It shows how the French participants were both victimizers and victims. The film does not advocate for their exoneration from culpability in this conflict.
Instead, Siri’s production illustrates how the wounds from which the French soldiers suffer were self-inflicted due to their violent enforcement of colonialism.
Siri explains in a series of interviews for L’ennemi intime that he wanted to make a war film for a long time because France simply did not have too many real war movies,
especially in the style that he and actor and friend Benoît Magimel had grown up watching. A film on the Algerian War was particularly appealing to him for two principal reasons. First, he considered himself rather ignorant on the subject, like most French citizens who grew up after the war. He mentions how the subject was brushed over in the French educational system. He considered the production of this film as a responsibility to educate and inform the public. The director believes that an action film is capable to attract an audience for the purpose of
entertainment, but that it can become a vehicle for education as well (Florent Siri Interview 4:
L'Ennemi intime 1:37-2:22). Second, Siri thinks the war had a profound effect on France, and one of the reasons these effects are felt today is because the conflict was full of contradictions. It was not even originally recognized as a war, when in fact it was different types of wars at once.
The armed struggle was a civil war, since it happened between people who were French, it was a colonial war, a guerilla war and a secret war. To adequately address the complexity of the
conflict the director chose a combination of approaches. He shot a drama that focused on very personal, emotional stories, mixed with a style that also incorporated epic storytelling and westerns.
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To bring this vision to life, Siri carefully planned the film for years and assembled a team that shared his attention to detail. He used storyboards extensively. He prepared detailed ones for each scene, from the epic battle sequences to the more emotional dramatic dialogue and self- reflective scenes (L'Ennemi intime Making Of (5) VF 0:02-0:30). He met with each member of the group involved a particular sequence to ensure they had a common vision of what to
accomplish (L'Ennemi intime Making Of (3) VF 0:04-1:26). Siri was not only very hands on with the actors, but with the rest of the crew as well. The story is fictional but deals with a sobering theme and is based on first-hand accounts. The director paid special attention to
background authenticity to convey as much realism as possible to the spectator. For example, his team went to great lengths to obtain or recreate accurate clothing for the cast. His wardrobe coordinator explains that they carefully studied the details of the different types of uniforms. The coordinator describes how French army uniforms were the same colors as the ones worn by the Harkis, but that certain details differed, such as the headgear. The European French worn helmets, while the Harkis wore traditional Algerian headdresses or other types of caps. The weapons and munitions of the French were issued by the Army, while many Harkis obtained German, Chinese and Russian guns and rifles on their own (L'Ennemi intime Making Of (4) VF 00:35-2:34). Even the gun holsters and belts were different, the Harkis wore leather equipment while the French ones were made of cloth. Harkis sometimes mixed other Algerian traditional garb with the French issued jackets or army pants. The wardrobe team studied all those differences and reproduced period-accurate apparel to give the fictional characters historical authenticity (Florent Siri Interview 4: L’ennemi intime 2:48-3:20). One more illustration of this attention to detail was the recruitment of Kabyle natives as a supporting cast, to display a culturally and linguistically accurate interpretation of social interaction between the Harkis and
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the French. The director wanted not only the right words and correct language used during the time in the dialogues, he even desired to utilize people with the correct accents.
Another example was the choice of color pallet in which the film was captured. Siri chose earthy tones and somewhat desaturated colors to convey the feeling of realism. He feels many westerns, such as the ones directed by Sergio Leone, follow this pattern. The combination of earthy western tones and a desaturated pallet instill a sense of harsh reality and roughness. As accustomed by many directors, he has repeatedly worked with the same director of photography, Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci. Coltellacci explains that not only the choice of color was of
importance in L’ennemi intime, but that maintaining a consistent amount of light was particularly relevant and challenging since they were primarily filming outdoors and dealing with the
elements (L'Ennemi intime Making Of (6) VF 0:02-1:37). He always made sure that the light was as consistent as possible so that the film maintains a cohesive narrative.
Siri mixes the epic battle scenes and grand scenic shots with close-ups of dramatic
dialogue and conversations to show the contradictions of this war, one that did not exist officially but happened between brothers of the same nation. He states that his main goal was to show that the French were not fighting against a foreign enemy, but themselves. Concerning the Algerian War, he disagrees with Sartre’s statement that ‘L’enfer c’est les autres’ (L'ennemi intime en DVD: Interview de Florent-Emilio Siri 2:02-2:44). Instead, Siri shows that while one of his protagonists is on his way out of the hell of war, the idealistic newcomer is only about to enter it.
In the end, they are both the same person. Hell is not a foreigner; it is found within us. The French were only fighting themselves and created their own civil, personal hell. The Algerian war was a struggle with an impossible victory. One of the Harkis states in the movie, while holding a cigarette burning at both ends, that on one side you have the French, on the other the
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Algerians, but that in the middle, you cannot win. When you engage in the war, you have already lost at the outset.
Film Synopsis
The year is 1959, and the Algerian war of independence rages on. In a remote location in the Kabyle mountains, a French lieutenant is killed, possibly by friendly fire. Lieutenant Terrien (Benoît Magimel) is an idealistic greenhorn sent to replace him. He is dropped right in the middle of a highly conflictive zone to lead a team of battle-hardened veterans, led by pragmatic Sergeant Dougnac (Albert Dupontel). The two men will clash due to their diametrically opposed leadership styles and views of the war.
In their first outing, they patrol a village where Terrien refuses to torture or kill with impunity the locals to obtain information. Later, they return to the same place only to find most of the villagers killed, supposedly by the FLN forces, for allegedly collaborating with the French.
Terrien rescues a youth who hid in the depth of a well, and who appears to be the lone survivor of the massacre. In the same outing, Terrien refuses to shoot women who transport water, but Dougnac enforces their killing. To support his reasoning, Dougnac shows the new lieutenant that things are not as they appear when he shows the newcomer that the large water urns that the women were carrying are filled with weapons, and the ‘women’ are disguised men who support the FLN.
The unit is ambushed a few scenes later, and a few important men within the platoon are seriously injured. A jeep comes to their rescue, but as they evacuate the injured officers, the vehicle is also ambushed. The occupants are killed and savagely mutilated. When the French unit realizes what is happening, they rush to aid their comrades but do not arrive on time. They
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discover the horrific results, which affect Terrien deeply. The unit returns to its camp, where high-ranking officers join them. The commanders lecture the men about their combat approach and responsibilities. As the story develops, Terrien becomes confused and disaffected with regards to the purpose of being in this war, for him and France. The atrocities that the men perpetrate, and from which they also suffer, impact Dougnac as well. The sergeant develops a sense of empathy while losing faith in the cause. In the end, Dougnac deserts the army and Terrien pays his participation in the war with the ultimate price, killed by the boy he had rescued from the well.
Even though the film is largely character and action-driven, the places portrayed in the film are of vital importance. They serve as a personification of the Algerian opposition to the French, especially in a film devoid of main Algerian characters as the pictures of the earlier chapters. The section that analyses the relationships focuses on explaining, through the story arcs of the characters, the self-reflection of the negative approach of France vis-à-vis the territory of Algeria. Before we focus on the protagonists, we will study how the Algerian spaces become the one main Algerian characters of the film through their relationship with the characters of the story.
Spatial Analysis
L’ennemi intime was filmed in Morocco, a country adjacent to Algeria. The former French North African colonies share cultural and geographical traits. The entirety of the picture is shot in the fictitious Algerian territory -as far as the narrative is concerned-, save for a short vacation leave when Lieutenant Terrien goes home for Christmas. The setting transports the French spectator inside the war to involve him or her directly with the conflict instead of merely
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referencing the war, as did the films of the 50s and 60s on this subject. This approach is comparable to that of many Vietnam films that attempted to duplicate the experience of the American combatants who fought in Southeast Asia. By placing the action in the Kabyle, a desertic mountainous region where a lot of the actual fighting took place, the picture places the viewer in the most unfamiliar territory possible. Geographically, this film takes us further into the Algeria that was never fully absorbed by France, away from the relative safety of the ‘villes françaises’ depicted in Mon colonel. Symmetrically organized towns are omitted; the only French territory shown are the barracks to which the military units are confined.
The French barracks have much in common with their equivalents in La trahison. They are austere, rudimentary and temporary. They stand out against the rough terrain, but it is the rough landscape that is an anthropological Place to its people. Due to their temporary nature, the barracks are the non-Place because they are not a home of any sort. They act as a shield against the indomitable, uncivilized Kabyle wilderness. The temporary military installations feel like inadequate intrusion by the colonial power in its failed attempt to subdue the local culture. The fact that we rarely see the insurgents while the French go on patrol only highlights how much these rebels find themselves at home. They blend with the land, exemplifying to what degree the territory and its people are inseparable. Of all the regions and peoples of Algeria, the concept of inseparability was particularly applicable to Kabyle. Sheele illustrates this point by explaining that the French originally viewed Kabyle in a more positive light than the rest of North Africa:
Even before the French army conquered Kabylia in 1857, the French public had been fascinated by these sedentary hill-farmers, in whom they all too easily recognized ideal French peasants attached to soil and independence. As Berber speakers, the Kabyles were seen as less Islamicized than their Arabic-speaking neighbors. (Scheele 896-897)
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The Kabyle is a Place for its inhabitants. It is ironic that the French, who are culturally attached to their land of origin37, felt this commonality towards the peoples of Kabyle before they
conquered them and dehumanized them. The definition of ‘sedentary hill-farmer’ could be easily be applied to the inhabitants of most rural French communities once one is removed from the large metropolitan centers such as Paris or Lyon. Kabyle performs its life-meaning function in a different, but effective manner, just as the French cities do for their European French dwellers.
As the rebels fight the French using the land to hide, fight and ambush their enemies, these activities give a new meaning to the life of the rebel fighters. Insurgent activities become life- giving and life-preserving to the rebel fighters as agriculture to a farmer. The Kabyle represents the independence from French people and culture. It signposts the difference that still spatially separates North Africans from Europeans, even though they have closely interacted for nearly a century and a half by the time of the war.
The opening scene is of paramount importance to set the tone of viewing the two cultures as intertwined, while contradictorily maintaining a socio-economic écart. This segregation proposes continuous parallelism that serves as a cultural mirror. In this reflection, the French can see themselves in the ennemi that they are fighting since this ennemi is literally and figuratively themselves. As the camera follows a French patrol, the soldiers blend well into the terrain as they move surreptitiously through rock and shrubbery. Sergeant Dougnac, who leads this party, spots some movement down into a mountain valley. It is the scarf-covered head of an armed man.
Dougnac’s men get set for combat, and he gives the order to open fire. During the bloody confrontation, we learn that Dougnac’s group is only half of the platoon when he calls his
37 Silberman, Alba and Fournier noted that the particular French cultural trait of rural immobility became one of the primary factors in needing to bring immigrant workers to France in the first place: “immigration was needed to provide workers for industrialization because of the relative immobility of French men and women in the country’s large agricultural sector” (Silberman, Alba and Fournier 3).
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superior to alert them that they are pushing the enemy towards the other part of the unit. He is horrified when the voice on the radio responds that they have already reached them, and
Dougnac can hear gunfire through the radio behind the screaming voice. He realizes it is the fire of his men. Dougnac halts the attack and his unit runs downhill to meet his comrades. His worst fears are realized when he confirms that he has been firing upon the other half of his platoon.
Even worse, the commanding officer is among the casualties. The French pretended that Algeria and its people were French, and the film establishes that if we follow this logic, this conflict was a civil war where the French killed their own.
The second scene then flips that script slightly by showing that there existed
irreconcilable differences among these fighting groups based on ethnicity, culture and religion.
France is a diverse but fractured nation. In this scene, the men return to their outpost, ‘Position avancée Mazel’, and funerals are conducted to honor the fallen. But there are two sets of
funerals, one for the ‘French’ officer conducted in French and Christian fashion, while the other is a Muslim burial conducted in Arabic. The scene is deftly shot. First, the camera takes both close-ups and long shots to allow us to see the two separate funerals taking place concurrently.
The close-ups are set in quick-cut, shot-counter-shot style, showing the French and Arabic services taking place next to each other. The viewer gets a sense of how similarly both cultures feel about their dead while also showing a lack of acceptance rather than one of tolerance. A shot-counter-shot is typically employed in a film during dialogue scenes, to guide the viewer through the interaction of two or more people, as they respond to each other’s statements. The style of montage that uses quick shot-counter-shots and close-ups is traditionally used to provide the viewer with a sense of logical continuity. Most movie and television viewers have seen it