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Opium and the Stick (1970)
Directed by Ahmed Rachedi
Action, Drama, War · 2h 17m
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.
Cast
Sid Ali Kouiret
Marie-José Nat
Mustapha Kateb
Rouiched
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Brahim Hadjadj
Abdelhalim Rais
Larbi Zekkal
Mahieddine Bachtarzi
Djelloul Bachdjarah
Kaci Ksentini
Ahmed Kadri (Krikèche)
Crew
- Director
- Ahmed Rachedi
- Novel
- Mouloud Mammeri
- Original Music Composer
- Philippe Arthuys
- Editor
- Éric Pluet
Details
- Original title
- L'Opium et le Bâton
- Release date
- 1970-09-14
- Runtime
- 2h 17m
- Genres
- Action, Drama, War
- Original language
- FR
- Spoken languages
- Arabic, French
- Countries
- Algeria
- Production
- Office National pour le Commerce et l'Industrie Cinématographique (ONCIC)