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The 35,000 Foot Critic:
Ambitions - Japan's MacBeth, Algeria's Revolt

En route to Colombia, I saw two mid-20th-century world film classics. The first was Akira Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood,' based on MacBeth, which makes it much easier to follow than many Japanese historical action films. The second was Gillo Pontecorvo's masterful 'Battle of Algiers', highly political recreation of Algeria's struggle for independence, including Algerian terrorism and French repression.

Throne of Blood:
1. Four Words That Encapsule:
'MacBeth in a Kimono'

2. Haikus: (5/7/5)
'Soldiers would be wise
to ignore spirits and wives
stoking ambition'

'Scotland and Japan,
share allegorical truth:
crime just doesn't pay'

At left, the famous 'arrow scene,' where our MacBeth-figure's entire battalion turns on him, brutally, with scores of bows and arrows... What an ignoble end..

Here's our antihero with his disturbing Japanese Lady MacBeth Döppelgänger...


Trailer for 'Throne of Blood:'

Most impressively, the black-and-white opus looks like historical footage even though every single shot was recreated, including protest marches, terrrorist incidents, raids, interrogations, and executions.

Much loved by the world's left-leaning intelligentsia, the film was banned in France for 5 years, and all torture scenes were cut from its American and British releases.

The film's most jarring aspect is that it shows terrorist acts as a necessary part of liberation struggle, even when the victims are children. That was hard to swallow.. More effective and reasonable were the national strikes that brought all activity in Algeria to a halt for days - including in the posh French neighborhoods where Algerian help do all the household work.

Here, angry (and cute) Algerian youths hit the streets:

Trailer for 'Battle of Algiers:'

Cartoons du Jour: