This paper aims to offer an analysis of two important films──Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers and Sembene Ousmane’s Xala──within the context of postcolonial theories. While its focus will be, in the main, on the post-colonial as a historical framework, the essay attempts to transcend this through its engagement with the postcolonial as awareness of identity, conflict and challenge on personal, communal and national levels. The issues broached cut across colonialism, decolonisation, neo-colonialism, violence, Fanonism, mimicry and neo–bourgeoisie. In the course of this analysis, recourse is made to Third Cinema as it “anticipates and touches borders with postcolonial theory” and its master concept of decolonisation. While the paper inaugurates the debate with individual close examinations of The Battle of Algiers and Xala, the discussion will be complemented by stringing the two films together on threads that bind them as two “great cinematic documents of the age of empire”

本論文旨在以後殖民理論分析兩部影片—Gillo Pontecorvo之The Battle of Algiers（《阿爾及利亞之戰》）與Sembene Ousmane 之Xala。論文一方面主要聚焦於作為歷史框架的後殖民面向，但是本文亦將嘗試藉由，視後殖民乃是對於身份，衝突及個人、社群與國家層面之
挑戰的深刻意識，來超越前者。論文所觸及的課題橫亙後殖民主義，去殖民化。新殖民主義，法農主義，摹態（mimicry）以及新中產階級。在論文分析過程中，會涉及「第三電影」Third Cinema，被定義為「預示以及與後殖民理論接壤」，也與去殖民化此一核心觀念有關。論文雖然與個別影片進行細部論辯，討論也會試圖連結兩者，藉助一條主線，即此兩部影片「是帝國時代的兩部偉大影片」。