Within bilingual, historical films, the manipulation of language allows a filmmaker to address questions of language that often have political importance, especially with regard to the political violence that forms a large part of the subject of the films. Thus film becomes an ideal space in which to examine language as it relates to political violence, and the ways in which language plays a role in larger discourses of violence. This paper will closely examine the role of language within three bilingual historical films, La Bataille d'Alger (1966), Hors-la-loi (2010), and Des Hommes et Des Dieux (2010) as well as the ways in which cinema acts as a medium of translation for history and the ways in which specific audiences can access and respond to a particularly violent history through film.

Key terms: Algeria in film; linguistic identity; bilingual films; linguistic landscape; cinematic affect; film as translation