L'opium et le baton

Sep 14 1970 N/A 2h 15m
Action, Drama, War

In 1950, in Algeria, in a village in Kabylia, Algerian resistance fighters resisted the French occupation army. Bachir returns to the village to escape the clashes ravaging Algiers. In Thala, he has two brothers, Ali and Belaïd. The first is engaged with the ALN (The National Liberation Army) and fights against the colonizer. His second brother, Belaïd, the eldest, is convinced of a French Algeria. His family torn apart, Bachir decides to join the war and takes sides against the repression of the French army. The French army is trying in vain to turn the population against the insurgents by using disinformation. The more time passes, the more the inhabitants of the village and surrounding areas, oppressed, rally to the cause of the FLN, their houses and their fields will be burned... Adaptation to the cinema of the eponymous novel Opium and the Stick, published in 1965, by Mouloud Mammeri, the film was dubbed into Tamazight (Berber), a first for Algerian cinema.

Plot

An Algerian doctor decides to leave the troubles in Algiers and goes back to his hometown, a small village lost in the mountains. There, however, the situation is explosive as well, as the guerrilla is active and the French military has to keep a close watch on the locals.

Written by

Mouloud Mammeri, Ahmed Rachedi

Directed by

Ahmed Rachedi

Cast

Mustapha Kateb, Rouiched, Mahieddine Bachtarzi

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

Algeria

Production Companies

Office National pour le Commerce et l'Industrie Cinématographique (ONCIC)

Languages

Français

Awards

1 nomination

Scores
# of Votes
133
Average Rating
7.4 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA