| Intimate Enemies | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Florent-Emilio Siri |
| Written by | Florent-Emilio Siri Patrick Rotman |
| Produced by | François Kraus Denis Pineau-Valencienne |
| Starring | Benoît Magimel Albert Dupontel |
| Cinematography | Giovanni Fiore Coltellaci |
| Edited by | Christophe Danilo Olivier Gajan |
| Music by | Alexandre Desplat |
Production company | Les Films du Kiosque |
| Distributed by | SND |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
| Countries | France Morocco |
| Languages | French Arabic Kabyle |
| Budget | $9.8 million[1] |
| Box office | $5.9 million[1] |
Intimate Enemies (French:L'Ennemi intime) is a 2007 Frenchwar film directed byFlorent-Emilio Siri, starringBenoît Magimel andAlbert Dupontel. It was filmed in France andMorocco.
The film is set in 1959 during theAlgerian War. Lieutenant Terrien (Benoît Magimel), an inexperienced and naïve juniorFrench Army officer, has volunteered for active service, rather than a safe staff post inAlgiers. He is posted toKabylie, a remote and mountainous region ofAlgeria, as a replacement for Lieutenant Constantin (Hicham Hlimi) who was killed during a ‘friendly fire’ incident commanding acounter-insurgency ambush operation – i.e. he was accidentally killed by his own side during a confused fire-fight. The war in Algeria is much more complicated than Lieutenant Terrien anticipated as he takes over command of his new platoon at the outpost "Mazel". Within hours of taking over his new command Terrien is ordered to lead a ‘locate and destroy’ mission into thezone interdite (the 'Forbidden Zone') to find aWorld War II French Army veteran named Slimane, now a local commander of Algerian rebels trying to win the independence of their homeland. Slimane is never seen in person during the film.
When theFellagha (Algerian insurgents) massacre the population of a local village in retaliation for a patrol visit from Terrien’s platoon, on the assumption that the villagers may have collaborated with the French, Terrien vows to remain calm and professional despite the appalling horrors that greet him. Terrien saves a young boy from drowning in the village well and is gradually forced to see the conflict through the eyes of that child: a child who temporarily adopts the French soldiers almost as a surrogate family. Terrien’s determination to remain detached, professional and controlled despite the atrocities that occur around him, including thetorture, abuse andsummary execution of Algerian prisoners, quickly gains him the initial contempt of Sergeant Dougnac (Albert Dupontel) his combat-hardened and cynical platoon sergeant, who has come to the conclusion that the level of violence employed by the Fellaghas can only be countered byequally brutal measures applied by the French.
The blooding of the young Lieutenant and the way in which he reacts to his newfound knowledge and experience provides the dramatic arc ofL’Ennemi intime. Terrien’s idealistic view of French involvement in Algeria is summed up during a conversation with Captain Berthaut (Marc Barbé), an intelligence officer, when Terrien argues that as metropolitan French citizens the Algerians should enjoy the same political rights as any other French citizen and states that "You can’t fight barbarism with barbarism". Berthaut, identified as a former member of theFrench Resistance who was tortured by theGestapo, a veteran of theFrench Indochina War and an old comrade-in-arms of Dougnac, disagrees and later in the film, states that, "At 110 volts the truth always comes out". Berthaut is killed and mutilated during a Fellaghist ambush as he attempts to evacuate a wounded soldier out of the ‘Forbidden Zone’ by jeep. Later, French soldiers (Terrien among them) retaliate by massacring and burning an entire village. In view of such atrocities, Terrien slowly begins to change his view.
Dougnac, identified within the film as a veteran ofFrench Indochina, is a complicated character who is not averse to resorting to torture and barbarism when it comes to dealing with insurgents yet is capable, professional and increasingly privately respectful of Terrien as an officer and as a man. Their professional differences and the harsh realities of operations in the field, however, drive the two men to breaking point with Dougnac finding release through alcohol and at least one instance of self-inflicted torture. Such are the pressures on Dougnac that he finally snaps and deserts the army, whilst Terrien ends up shot by the boy he saved, whose brother was killed in a French military operation.
L'Ennemi intime, co-written by Florent-Emilio Siri andPatrick Rotman, a French historian, documentary film-maker and screenwriter, is set during the French Algerian War and was inspired by Rotman's non-fiction book,La guerre sans nom (The Undeclared War) published in 1992, and subsequent French television documentary (L'Ennemi intime co-written with the directorBertrand Tavernier and originally broadcast in March 2002 byFrance3). The Rotman-Tavernier documentary focused on the psychological effects of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) on French soldiers who served in the conflict, the impact of French military tactics and extrajudicial actions and included on-camera interviews with French veterans speaking about their experiences of the so-calledundeclared war.
Review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 57%, based on 14 reviews, with an average score of 5.6/10.[2] AtMetacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 61, based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[3]
| Award / Film Festival | Category | Recipients and nominees | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cairo International Film Festival | Golden Pyramid Award | Won | |
| Best Director | Florent-Emilio Siri | Won | |
| Best Actor | Albert Dupontel | Won | |
| César Awards | Best Cinematography | Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci | Nominated |
| Best Original Music | Alexandre Desplat | Nominated | |
| Best Sound | Antoine Deflandre, Germain Boulay and Eric Tisserand | Nominated | |
| Prix Jacques Prévert du Scénario | Best Original Screenplay | Patrick Rotman and Florent-Emilio Siri | Nominated |
