Since its release in 1966, The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo has divided critical opinion. The film, which chronicles Algeria's struggle for independence against French colonial power, won the Golden Lion at the 1966 Venice Film Festival. Yet, despite this success, the intrinsically controversial film was banned in France until 1971 due to its graphic depiction of torture and repression during the Algerian War. The politically committed director, however, had tried to make The Battle of Algiers within a "dictatorship of truth", without supporting the Algerians or reducing his film to propaganda. Influenced by the distinctive neorealist cinematic style, Pontecorvo made such a remarkably accurate reflection of social reality that the film's original American distributor included the disclaimer: "Not one foot of newsreel or documentary film was used." The following analysis of the sequence will therefore explore the neorealist cinematic techniques employed by Pontecorvo and examine their effects on our understanding of the issues and themes raised in the film. In the chosen sequence we start from the end of the story. Filmed in Algiers, the year is 1957. An Algerian nationalist has revealed the whereabouts of the last member of the FLN, Ali La Pointe. The French army, determined to suppress the Independent Movement, stormed the Casbah and finally located "la tête du ténia" behind a tiled wall. Before the climactic finale, Pontecorvo's complex temporal structure transports us to the year 1954, here the film traces the transformation of Ali La Pointe from petty criminal to nationalist martyr. In the opening sequence, the FLN and the French army are cinematically pitted against each other. across......middle of the paper......the previous sequence, between the young Europeans and Ali La Pointe, visually justifies Ali's rebellion. When the police arrive, Ali flees until; he is tripped by a young Frenchman who in turn receives a brutal punch from Ali. France-Algeria represented by the protagonists Ali La Pointe and Colonial Mathieu. A voiceover lists Ali's past as a petty criminal and past as a boxer, thief and pimp. . The image that accompanies the narration is a close-up shot of Ali under arrest, walking with the police officer. The music is Arabic. The scene is then accompanied by the arrival of Mathieu who parades in front of some Frenchmen while the narrator intones a description of Mathieu's exploits. Due to Italian-Algerian co-production, it can be argued that Pontecorvo gives the FLN victim status. Music - Complex interrelationships between sound and image.