ABSTRACT
This book, Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance, begins with analysis of The Battle of Algiers (1966) and ends with study of The Lost Water (2010). Although these films are set in different parts of the world, the former North Africa and the latter India, they share much: both realistic, both documentary in feel, both made with a political purpose (one publicizing a recent revolution and the other hoping to foment one). Their similarities are significant, but their differences are more so. A historical fiction drama, The Battle of Algiers was made by a “first-world” filmmaker about a “third-world” anti-colonial struggle with which he sympathizes, while The Lost Water, a low-budget documentary video, was made by a largely self-taught “fourth-world” filmmaker about a postcolonial state’s internal struggle involving the filmmaker’s own historically marginalized social class. In The Lost Water, the subaltern filmmaker has begun to speak.
