A Woman's Struggle in Midst of War

By Carole Corm

Film Reviewed: Rachida

By Yamina Bachir-Chouikh

Global Film Initiative, 2002

Quite by chance, I found myself watching Yamina Bachir's wonderful film "Rachida" just days after a trip to Algeria where I had helped cover the presidential elections. The film was the visual narrative of what people had been constantly alluding to, namely the 10 years of incredible terror that Algeria fell into after the victory of the Islamists and the subsequent cancellation of the presidential elections by the army in 1992. Throughout the '90s, an unnamed civil war terrorized the nation, leaving the country exhausted, as well as cynical about the post colonial political legacy that had created the ferment and led to such violence.

"Rachida" is set in the mid 1990s. The eponymous main character, a beautiful girl in her early twenties, is a school teacher in Algiers. On her way to work, she is stopped by one of her former students who tries to force her to carry a bomb into the school. Rachida refuses and is shot in the stomach. Miraculously, Rachida survives the attack, yet she is obliged to flee to a remote village in the countryside. For fear of terrorist vengeance, she cuts off almost all contact with her boyfriend and her former life. For some weeks, she stays inside the house, too shocked and frightened to go outside. She has become "a stranger in her own country."

When she goes back to Algiers for a medical check-up, on the journey narrowly escaping a fake check point put up by a band of terrorists - a frequent occurrence in those days - she explains to the doctor that although she is recovering physically, she is not well mentally. "I am always scared." To which the doctor replies, "I am also scared, the whole country is scared