The brilliant, classic "Battle of Algiers" (1966) is playing in New York in a mini-festival called War on War. Directed by Italian Gillo Pontecorvo, the film reconstructs a year of the French-Algerian war in the 1950s. Shot in documentary style, reminiscent of Roberto Rossellini's equally great film "Rome: Open City" about the Nazi occupation of Rome, "Battle of Algiers" shows the strategies of both sides as the violence spirals. What is most shocking is that it could easily be about the Middle East today, only the characters have changed.