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Bookmark this pageIntimate Enemies (2007)
Director: Florent Emilio Siri
Movie review
From Time Out London
Laudable, perhaps, for including depictions of the more hidden aspects – notable torture – of French military policy in pre-independence Algeria and attempting to deal with the implications of the complex mix of French and Algerian personnel in the French army, this most recent French-Algerian war film, nevertheless, suffers from coming in the wake of the far superior ‘Mon Colonel’ and ‘Days of Glory’.
It’s not helped, either, by the casuistry of Patrick Rotman’s episodic screenplay, which fails satisfactorily to dramatise the historical, martial and personal conflicts affecting a combatant French company in 1959 through the relationship of an ‘idealistic’ new officer (Benoît Magimel) and his battle-hardened Indo-China-vet sergeant (Albert Dupontel). Director Florent Emilio Siri (‘The Nest’, ‘Hostage’) shows ability in action sequences and group dynamics but his film never develops sufficiently to raise it much above the conventional.
Author: Wally Hammond
Time Out London Issue 1953: Jan 23-29
Cast & crew
Director: Florent Emilio Siri
Cast: Benoît Magimel, Albert Dupontel, Aurélien Recoing
Duration: 111 mins
US Release: Oct 2 2009
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