BARAKAT!/ ENOUGH!

Algeria, 2005, 95 minutes, Colour.
Rachida Brakni, Fettouoma Bouamani.
Directed by Djamilla Sahraoui.

Barakat contains a brief but compelling story, told in a slow-moving and contemplative manner. It takes us back into the civil fighting in Algeria in the 1990s. Some of the veterans of the wars against the French have settled into productive lives. Others are still fighting in fundamentalist militias.

The central character is a dedicated doctor who is fearless against curfews to save her patients. Her journalist husband disappears and she enlists the aid of a nurse friend (who fought against the French and has contacts with the militias) and they drive to a remote mountain village to find the abducted man. While they come to aid of the wounded, they are not successful and are made to walk down the mountain to freedom. The doctor bickers with her friend but, finally, apologises. They are given shelter by a quiet old man who takes them by cart back to the city where the doctor realises what has happened and goes in pursuit.

The characters are particularly well drawn and audiences can empathise with the proud and professional doctor and the kindly but tough nurse.

The issues of civil strife and terrorism are universal even as they are shown in the particular details of struggles in Algeria.