These maps show the series of attacks and physical conditions that changed or were modified according to the attacks. We can see the creation of a border zone as the response to the first set of attacks by the Algerians on the French. The diagrams also show the infiltration that still occurs at the border regardless of the barriers. The final diagrams track the rising levels of awareness of the crowd as each of the leaders are being taken down.
Overlaying the last two diagrams allows us to start to see the relationships that exist between awareness, both on the individual and collective levels, intensities and energy transfers.
There also exists a relationship between the intensity of the events and the awareness of the Algerians. This diagram shows that as the Algerians up the violence with small attacks the French respond back by larger attacks and upping the intensity, with the Algerians represented by the pink line and the French represented by the blue. As we see over time, the French breakdown the Algerian intensity, yet at the same time the awareness of the Algerians is growing. There is an inverse relationship that is developed as the French take down the Algerian leaders, seemingly stopping insurrection, but the awareness level is actually being raised. Ultimately, it is this raise in awareness that allow the insurrection to thrive and allow for revolt against the French.
The Battle of Algiers employs cinematic techniques which highlight the individual’s relationship to the collective. Throughout the film we see each of the leaders of the revolutionary group, the FLN, chosen to be arrested or killed. These moments are the moments of conflict in which the individual has a choice to make. At each of these moments there is a pause, the camera zooming in on the individual and out to the crowd and zooming back in as a choice is made. At the moment of choice, the individual is lost but his energy is transferred to the energy of the mass. Running on the diagram vertically is the level of awareness of each of the leaders and time running horizontally. The main character Ali is represented by the grey line and we can see his importance in the fact that the crowd has grown dramatically by his moment of capture, suggesting that his energy will be raise awareness of the mass the most.
The Battle of Algiers, a film directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, is based off of the reality of the uprising in Algiers against the French in 1966. In this film, similar to that of La Haine, we see all the leaders of the revolution have to make a personal choice which no matter what leads to their ending, whether it is death or imprisonment. Yet even though in the end all the leaders are taken out, three years later the revolt occurs anyways. This leads back to the question of futility, which seems to say that though the individual is lost; their choices are not futile for they have somehow had affected the larger scheme of insurrection. The relationship between the individual and the collective can be clearly understood if we are to consider the notion of entropy.
In an entropic system, the internal energy of the system remains the same even if one part loses energy, it is gained elsewhere. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can only increase or remain the same. Using the Battle of Algiers as a framework we can map each character and see the relationship that is set up between the individual and the collective. The demise of the individual and their choices seem futile as an independent system but if we considered them as an integral part of an entropic system then their choices are of crucial. That is to say, the loss of an individual, if we consider insurrection as a whole to be an entropic system, is an energy transfer to the collective. Though the individual at that moment of conflict may be lost, either by way of death or imprisonment, their energy is diverted toward the collective. This energy transfer is in the form of awareness which is what ultimately allows the collective to enact an insurrection.
"Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor,he kept saying to reassure himself:"So far so good..."so far so good..." How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land.". -excerpt from La Haine, 1995
The initial inquiry into the subject of insurrection was based off of the film, La Haine written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. The film follows three youths in the suburbs of Paris after a night of rioting and police violence that leaves their friend in the hospital. The question of futility was posed based off of the fact that in the film, the main character, Vinz, has a choice to make, one in which will surely lead to death. In the end he makes the “right” choice but ultimately ends up dying anyways. If the end result is the same, what difference does the choice of the individual make? Yet the film offers us another meaning in the aforementioned anecdote of the falling man which is repeated multiple times throughout the film. “How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!” If we are to consider falling as life itself and how you land as the choice you make in the end, then we see that the individual’s choices are not irrelevant and are of utmost importance. Taken in consideration with analysis of the film, Battle of Algiers, we see that the choices of the individual are part of a greater scheme which affects the whole.