The Nameless War

The documentary by director Agnieszka Lukasiak, who was born in Poland and lives in Sweden, is very intimate; to avoid any misunderstanding, she starts by filming herself in a mirror. She is severely sincere: she acknowledges her egocentric motives to go and shoot a film in Algeria. ‘If I faced danger and suffering, I would finally open my eyes and start to appreciate life.’ Life in Algeria turns out to be different from what she expected. In a confrontational edit, she crosscuts news images of an Algerian attack with footage of two boys who are drinking, smoking and dancing to Madonna. And then she falls in love with the Algerian boy she stays with. Unfortunately, he is the eldest son of the family; family obligations outweigh love in Algeria. She returns to Sweden, but later travels back to Algeria. She hopes her relationship can be saved, but this time she buries herself more deeply in the Algerian situation. Stubborn and curious, she films where it is not allowed and goes to places where she is not allowed to go – again and again, she hastily switches off the camera. She talks with a police officer and a survivor of an attack; she films the ‘new Algeria’ of underground dance parties, but also interviews a politician from the opposition and a few homosexuals. With a lively camera and quick successive sequences, and without sparing herself, she shows emotional confrontations in which personal and political elements are inseparable.