FAR FROM MEN IS ALSO ABOUT SEEKING NEUTRALITY IN A WAR ZONE
Albert Camus’s short story L’Hôte has now been brought to the screen. Daru (played by Viggo Mortensen) is a Spanish settler born in Algeria who was a major on the side of France in World War II. Having lost his wife in 1944, he is now a schoolteacher in his home province, but caught up in Algeria’s war of independence in 1954. Although he does not oppose independence, French soldiers drop off an Algerian prisoner, Mohamed (Reda Kateb), at his school with orders to take him for trial before execution as an enemy to Tinguit, a town two days away. But Daru does not want to do so. When Algerians come by, demanding Mohamed’s surrender, Daru kills their armed leader, whereupon the others run away, making their return with many weapons inevitable. Mohamed has killed his cousin for stealing food for his family and expects his cousin’s relatives to kill him, whereupon Mohamed’s younger brothers will die seeking revenge, so Mohamed prefers surrendering to the French so that his brothers will live. The two then leave on foot for Tinguit through the Atlas Mountains. They are captured by Algerian rebels, including a couple of Daru’s wartime buddies, but are soon attacked by the French, who kill all the rebels as “terrorists” (including the war crime of executing those who surrender) but spare Daru and Mohamed so that they can complete their journey to Tinguit. A sexual subplot with Spanish prostitutes appears to change Mohamed’s outlook so that Daru advises him to join the nomadic Tuaregs instead of surrendering. Will he? Meanwhile, Daru realizes that the war requires him to stop teaching. What will he do next? Directed by David Oelhoffen and filmed in Morocco, Far from Men (Loin des hommes) does indeed demonstrate Camus’s penchant to find absurdity, albeit in a most austere and ambiguously fatalistic manner. MH