It is an ode to The Battle of Algiers (1965), a patriotic and thought-provoking cinema for the decolonization movement.

Some pronounce it as a symbol of Third Cinema: cinema that is designed to overthrow the systems of colonialism.

This film reconstructs the struggle of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) to gain its independence from French colonialism in the Algerian War (1954-62). Using the point of view of Ali La Pointe, a thief-turned-revolutionary who was executed by the French authorities in 1957.

The "Battle of Algiers" was one of the pivotal phenomena in the Algerian struggle for independence. It took place in the alleys and streets of the Algiers Casbah.

Directed by an Italian filmmaker, Gillo Pontecorvo, it provides a brutal and honest view of colonialization and the struggle for independence. He creates a nuanced docudrama and considers a fair account of the war.

The Battle of Algiers (1965) represents the struggle for independence that has shed blood on the hands of both parties.

"M. Ben M'Hidi, don't you think it's a bit cowardly to use women's baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?"

"And doesn't it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Of course, if we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets."

As Indonesian, we share the same experience of the struggle that we remembered as "masa bersiap", which describes the period of violence at the beginning of the Indonesian revolution. Amid the increasing power vacuum left by the retreating Japanese occupational forces and the British military presence before the handover to Dutch power, the Indonesian revolutionary fighters targeted those who were the symbols of colonialism such as the aristocrats, Dutch-Indo, and minorities.

The Battle of Algiers (1965) became a very interesting anticolonial film not only in its cinematic aspect. This film born in the middle of the decolonization period and the Cold War.

In that situation, many countries were in the struggle for independence, and some became the stage of proxy wars between America and the Soviets. Through his realism, Pontecorvo illustrates the tragedy of every decolonization and national struggle: both sides can be very cruel when fighting for what they believe in.

However, Algeria is the "Mecca of Revolutions", as described by Amílcar Cabral, Africa's foremost anti-colonial leader and founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde.

The Battle of Algiers (1965) brought together many anti-colonial movements from the "Global South" which based the struggles on liberation ideological constructs.