Terminal Sud review – powerful dispatch from a civil war

Ramzy Bedia is captivating as a charismatic doctor in this French-Algerian drama about a country descending into chaos

French-Algerian film-maker Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche sends us a dispatch from a civil war with Terminal Sud, an intriguing, somewhat abstract drama about a country descending into chaos. The facts on the ground here seem to tally with the Algerian civil war of the 90s, the so called black decade" that claimed more than 100,000 lives. But the film was mostly shot in southern France, and Ameur-Zaimeche doesn't hide contemporary details such as mobiles and new-model SUVs. He has said in interviews that the point is to make it universal: this could happen any time, anywhere. The approach isn't entirely convincing, and the unfocused sense of time and place is a bit distracting and frustrating at times. But there is real power to many of the scenes.