Chronicle of the Years of Fire, a sprawling three hour epic in three chapters that tells the story of Algeria’s modern history, could’ve been a nearly perfect movie. It has moments of complete brilliance that make the rest of the film so disappointing. The cinematography is stunning, the topic is engaging, and it’s told in a pretty unique way through the eyes of a peasant. But let me explain why it doesn’t come together:
1) The runtime and pacing. The runtime is FELT. Every minute is really long. It has hardly any moments of addictive, easy-to-watch movie magic. You feel like you are watching the history of Algeria in real time.
2) The acting. Some of these actors are...rough. You can tell that a lot are non-actors but not enough is given to the (quite good) leads that the acting becomes hard to appreciate.
3) The lack of focused plot. The screenplay is all over the place. It takes nearly an hour to get the main plot going, and it loves its tangents. It’s hard to follow and really unfocused.
4) No character growth. Every character dissolves into caricature, stating the exact same with one or two traits for the entire movie. It becomes tiring.
Despite all that, it’s a decent film. Perhaps a better piece of education than entertainment, but it should definitely be more popular than it is. Too bad this unique film has been forgotten.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire, a sprawling three hour epic in three chapters that tells the story of Algeria’s modern history, could’ve been a nearly perfect movie. It has moments of complete brilliance that make the rest of the film so disappointing. The cinematography is stunning, the topic is engaging, and it’s told in a pretty unique way through the eyes of a peasant. But let me explain why it doesn’t come together:
1) The runtime and pacing. The runtime is FELT. Every minute is really long. It has hardly any moments of addictive, easy-to-watch movie magic. You feel like you are watching the history of Algeria in real time.
2) The acting. Some of these actors are...rough. You can tell that a lot are non-actors but not enough is given to the (quite good) leads that the acting becomes hard to appreciate.
3) The lack of focused plot. The screenplay is all over the place. It takes nearly an hour to get the main plot going, and it loves its tangents. It’s hard to follow and really unfocused.
4) No character growth. Every character dissolves into caricature, stating the exact same with one or two traits for the entire movie. It becomes tiring.
Despite all that, it’s a decent film. Perhaps a better piece of education than entertainment, but it should definitely be more popular than it is. Too bad this unique film has been forgotten.
