Days of Glory (Indigènes — "Natives") is a 2006 French-Algerian-Moroccan war film directed by Rachid Bouchareb.
Algeria, 1943. With the Allies having beaten the Germans in North Africa, the Free French forces begin recruiting locals to bolster their numbers. Among the Algerians joining up are Said, an illiterate goat herder; Messaoud, who wants to move to France and assimilate; and Abdelkader, a politically-aware type who thinks that participation in the war against Germany will help Algerians gain equal treatment and political rights within The French Colonial Empire. Also in the unit are Moroccan brothers Yassir and Larbi, and darker-skinned sub-Saharan Africans. Their unit commanders are "pied-noirs", Algerian residents of French ethnicity, including their sergeant, Martinez.
The men are formed into an army. They first see action in Italy where they are tossed at German gun positions as cannon fodder by heedless French senior officers. Soon they are sent to France as part of the August 1944 landings on France's Mediterranean coast. The men are hailed as liberators when they arrive in Marseilles, but, despite their bravery, they are discriminated against at every turn. They are denied the best rations, denied promotions, and denied leave. The African troops do not accept this placidly, but continue to agitate for equal treatment, even as they face the Germans in the Vosges and then are sent into an attack in Alsace.
Samy Naceri stars as Yassir and Jamel Debbouze stars as Saïd. A young Mélanie Laurent has a small part as an Alsatian milkmaid.
No connection with an American World War II film also called Days of Glory. In 2010 Bouchareb directed a Spiritual Successor of this film called Outside the Law, which dealt with Algeria's guerilla war of independence against France, and had several of the same actors as in this film playing characters with the same names, but not in the same continuity.
Tropes:
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: They do manage to arrive Just in Time to save Abdelkader, but the white French troops who eventually chase the Germans out of the village are just a few minutes too late to save Sami, Yassir, Messaoud, and Martinez.
- Distant Finale: A "60 Years Later" epilogue shows an elderly Abdelkader visiting a graveyard in Alsace and praying before the graves of his dead companions, before going back to a tiny little apartment somewhere.
- Downer Ending: Everyone is killed except for Abdelkader, who is shown 60 years later living alone in a tiny apartment. A closing title card notes that in 1959 the French government froze pension payment increases for its African soldiers after its colonies became independent, and a half-century later, French African veterans still haven't gotten their back pay.
- Fatal Family Photo:
- One soldier pulls out a photo of a girlfriend from a dead German's coat.
- Martinez carries a photo of him as a baby with his mother—a Muslim Arab. He's killed in the final battle.
- Messaoud looks at his photo of his Marseilles girlfriend during the final battle, and is killed shortly afterwards.
- Field Promotion: Leroux and Martinez, two pied-noirs with the unit, are promoted to staff sergeant and sergeant, respectively. The Africans, who know that they'll never get promotions, aren't happy to see this.
- Grave-Marking Scene: The film ends with a Distant Finale in which an old Abdelkader visits the graves of his comrades.
- Hand Signals: Abdelkader uses these to direct the men as they tentatively enter the Alsatian farm village.
- Hiding Your Heritage: Said notices the photo of Martinez as a baby with his mother, who was an Algerian Arab. When Said mentions this, Martinez gets violently angry, hits Said, and screams at him to never tell anyone else.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Messaoud can't understand why his French girlfriend in Marseilles isn't writing to him. It turns out that racist censors in the army post office are intercepting their letters to each other.
- Never Learned to Read: Said is illiterate. Martinez's scorn at the very idea of educating the soldiers in the unit, even though as Abdelkader points out it's French Army doctrine, shows how little the French are interested in taking care of the Africans that are dying with them.
- Pin-Pulling Teeth: Said does this before tossing his grenade, which wipes out a German machine gun nest.
- Propaganda Machine: Abdelkader watches a French newsreel crew filming the white French troops in the village, as a reporter says "The French forces free Alsace!". The only people to recognize the heroism of the Africans are the villagers themselves, who applaud Abdelkader as he leaves.
- Sole Survivor: Abdelkader is the only survivor after most of the rest of the unit is killed by German booby traps in the forest, and the four men who made it to the village with him all die in the German attack.
- Stock Footage: The film opens with stock footage clips of regular life in 1940s Algeria.
- Time Skip: There's a pretty big time skip from the Algerian forces first being assembled in 1943, to them seeing action for the first time in 1944 Italy. Smaller time skips take the story to Alsace in January 1945.
- Title Drop: A captain says to Martinez, "You know the natives." When Martinez says that's not a very good thing to call them, the captain says "Muslims" and Martinez says that's not good either. When the clueless captain asks what he should call his soldiers, Martinez says "The men."
- You Are in Command Now: After German booby traps kill off the bulk of the unit, the few survivors find Martinez sitting against a tree. When Abdelkader asks if they should retreat or keep going, Martinez, who has been badly injured and is suffering a head wound from the booby traps, says that Abdelkader is in command and has to decide.
