Do the Right Thing

This was a very interesting movie to follow up the Battle of Algiers, in the sense that it was pretty much a complete 180 of that movie. It takes place in New York City, most likely Harlem in a mostly black community with a white owned pizzeria.

It was very unorthodox in the fact that there was no real main character. Mookie the pizza delivery boy was one of the people followed around but this movie didn't really focus on him, instead it focused on many people that ended up bight tied together in the plot at the end.

On of the main issues in the movie was racism. There is racism towards, whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Vietnamese. Basically everyone is experiencing some form of racism. Since Sal's is a white owned store in a dominantly black neighborhood Sal himself is viewed as a racist in some of the black customer's eyes. He is accused because of the fact that there were no pictures of black people on the wall and a few people started to boycott the restaurant. The person accusing is viewed as a racist because he makes such a big deal that black people aren't represented on the wall.

So in the end the racism gets the best and the cops kill a black guy and all hell breaks loss. The restaurant is burned tot he ground and Sal is forced out of the neighborhood because of that. When he tries to make a mends with Mookie Mookie is rude in return, showing the the issue is not solved.

Battle of Algiers

This was a very powerful and deep movie. I can see why the pentagon used it to see the inside of a terrorist organization, since it is based around the FLN, and the France government trying to dissemble it by taking out the leaders. The analogy of the terrorist being like a tape worm were you can pick off the bottom as much as you want but it won't be solved until you remove the head.

Even though the movie was entirely in subtitles and was hard to read from the back of the room the heavy plot of the movie and tensions felt from the characters in the film. There was no real hero and villain, but instead both sides had their moments where you felt sympathetic for their side and other moments where you couldn't help but feel like they were evil.

My overall feel for the film was that the Algiers, and the FLN in particular were pretty much the typical terrorist group, for lack of a better term. They could be viewed as the protagonist at times but they were also blowing you Innocent people. They would bomb anywhere no matter if the people in the place were oppressors or not. They would kill anyone for their cause. But as the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The French took a darker side showing them use torture to get information and intimidate the people with their army. Also at the end using six sticks of dynamite to blow up I think it was three people and a child. A little over done if you ask me.

But all in all I found this to be a very good movie and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind subtitles. As I said this is a very powerful film.