Shattered vision

The year is 1962. Algeria is engulfed by events in its struggle for independence from France; competing ideologies shatter families and ordinary people become caught between hope and despair, triumph and disillusionment. Fifteen-year-old Hassan has grown up in a Muslim world in violent conflict with the French culture that has controlled but not conquered it. In Hassan's village and the surrounding mountains the beliefs, superstitions and traditions of centuries persist in sharp contrast to life in Algiers. Hassan sees these cultural clashes at close range when he leaves his village for the city in the hope of finding a cure for his failing eyesight. Torn between the doctors at the hospital in Algiers and those who prescribe traditional treatments at home, Hassan feels increasingly estranged from both worlds. Gradually the failures of Western medicine are eclipsed by the painful and eventually disastrous attempts of the sorcerers, marabouts, and charlatans of the village. Hassan's rite of passage, however tragic, is ultimately a triumph of the spirit, for the young man's powers of observation increase as his physical powers disintegrate. He sees the greed, pettiness, and cruelty of his fellow countrymen as well as of the occupying colonials.