Commune (Paris 1871)

Inside a giant warehouse in a working-class Parisian superb, Peter Watkins (The War Game, Edvard Munch) assembles a cast of over 200 non-professional actors (though their amateur status is undetectable). basing their work upon thorough historical research, they will attempt to re-create the events of March, 1871 - the rise and fall of the Paris Commune.

La Commune (Paris 1871) explores that famous, brief, romantic, and tragic period when poor and working-class Parisians rose up against the "bourgeois" French national government, which fled the capital and re-established itself in Versailles. As this complex historical drama unfolds, it is also "covered" by two television news crews - one from "National TV Versailles" which broadcasts the official version of events, the other from "Commune TV," giving voice to the rebellious Communards.

Mixing past with present, revolutionary in form as well as content, Watkin´s audacious masterpiece forces us to confront notions of a safe or objective reading of the past, and also to reflect, inevitably, upon the present. No one who meets the challenge of La Commune (Paris 1871) will be unchanged by the experience.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 3 Oktober,  2007