Days Of Glory (aka Indigenes/2006)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
Rachid Bouchareb’s
War film Days Of Glory (aka Indigenes/2006) is an ambitious, award
winning examination of racism during WWII as four North African men join the French
against the Nazis and then they land up having fights within their camp instead
of focusing on the real enemy. It is
serious, well-intended, but never comes up with anything new in the Bouchareb/Olivier
Lorelle screenplay except to show us more racism where many may have not know
it before.
That is
fine, but this becomes more formulaic than the down moments of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and its attempts to
imitate that film’s look do not work either.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is soft anyhow and too
colorless for its own good, as shot by Director of Photography Patrick
Blossier. That is a shame, because these
locations would have been more effective if used more naturalistically.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix is surprisingly dialogue driven and the war scenes only use the
mix’s possibilities so much. The score
by Khaled and Armand Arnar is not bad and stops the film from being more boring
than it sometimes gets. Extras include a
companion short film and a making of featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
