"Days of Glory" is a Great Film

My dad fondly recalled the old Hollywood war films he saw when he was young; he find many of them entertaining. He isn't a fan of subtitled movies, but he joined me and my friend Thomas one Sunday afternoon. Days of Glory was the title, which we would be the topic for our essay. I was touched. Not even "Saving Private Ryan" have this kind of compassion and insight.

This French-Algerian film is based from true accounts of north Africans who fought the Nazis during World War II. They represented France, but it was just a name. Discrimination and unappreciation of their efforts were seen in many brief, poignant scenes. As the few scenes suggest, most of them are illiterate. I doubt if they'll react strongly to essay papers that dismiss Africans' significance in French society. Only one soldier in the film seems to be aware of this; Abdelkader (played by Sami Bouajila) was better educated than his comrades, and his strong belief to the French motto of liberty, equality, fraternity intesifies his resentment to French practices.

I'm not a film student, but I like the bleak shots of the Italian and French landscapes. As Thomas remarked, it was a way of treating the subject matter without much sentimentality. My dad shed tears during some scenes. He can relate to the feeling of being of doing something for nothing. For these soldiers, being ignored and passed over weren't the only crimes done to them. It's being virtually ignored even decades after the war ended.

Days of Glory isn't just a great film, but also a moving picture on camarederie and cultural identity.