La commune (Paris, 1871)

Peter Watkins stands at the base of a form of historical documentaries known as 'documentary reconstruction'. Lightly based on battle re-enactments, Watkins hires amateur actors to play the roles of common people in the Paris of 1871. Famine and civil unrest cause a popular revolution, supported by followers of Karl Marx. The people take power and form a Commune, a communist government. After a few weeks, the official Versailles government regains the city by force, and tens of thousands of people are executed.

Watkins' historical drama is based on the common people, which are shown in their everyday life. To do this, he introduced an anachronism: in the 1871 context, the people form a tv station. The Versaillais also have their official tv station. This way, the documentary becomes both a social project and a media experiment.

Once again, the National Gallery of Art film program has brought us another film we are unlikely to see at any other theater. This is an uneven but ultimately fascinating look at a relatively unknown period in French history, the 1871 Communard revolution in Paris right after the Franco-Prussian War. The filmmaker uses non-professional actors who were also allowed to be co-producers and to write their own lines to some extent. It is shot in black and white and on Beta Digital tape. The film technique reminds me of an old TV program from the 1950s' called "You Are There" in which today's media looks back on history and even interviews the participants in the historical drama.

The film is very slow going which gives the viewer a total feeling of both being there right in the action on a day to day basis while looking down on it from afar. We live the everyday life of the people in Paris during this short period of 2 1/2 months. At some points, the actors stop the action and comment on their involvement in the making of the very film they are in. Also, they and the filmmaker comment on globalization and peoples' rights in today's world. History is brought forth into our present time and we see that all events in human history are more alike than they are different.

This film is not for the average movie-goer. It is for a small audience of patient students of history and politics. It fascinated me but also tried that patience quite often. I would recommend not attempting to view this film without being well rested. It is in two parts of three hours each. Frankly, the filmmaker could have cut this down and still had a powerful history lesson for all of us.

I must admit, the first thing that caught my attention in the programme of Arsenal Movie Theatre was the length of the film - 345 min. I was intrigued and looked it up on the internet, starting with imdb, and became even more intrigued. So I saw the movie yesterday.

And I didn't regret it at all. (Although I had to struggle through German subtitles for the shorter German version of 300 min. The announced full one with English subtitles was stuck somewhere in Paris.)

It is probably one of the most unusual movies I've ever seen. It is even not really a movie, at least in the standard understanding of it (let alone the length of the thing). It is obviously a mind game, but a mind game so fine and intellectual, as well as passionate, thrilling and challenging, that it somehow makes you feel deeply involved in it emotionally, not forgetting for a single moment that it is a game and the whole idea is completely absurd.

Indeed, what can be more absurd than watching "breaking news" about Paris Commune of 1871, like we were all watching tv on 9.11 or when the war in Iraq was about to begin. "Versailles TV", "Commune TV". Journalists asking "What do you feel now? What hopes do you have now for the future of The Commune?". But all staged, actors sometimes telling the camera about the roles they are playing. Or discussing whether The Commune could have had future, or Russian revolution was successful despite Kronstadt uprising.

The shocking thing is that it feels real. Even though you perfectly understand that it can't. He's using the media and our perception of the media (which makes us question to what an extent can our senses be manipulated) as a frame for all the events happening and in a way alters our perception of history and of history happening now.

I'm still digesting the movie, it raises a lot of question and makes you think a lot. But I'm happy to know that Arsenal is planning Peter Watkins's retrospective. So Berliners will have a unique chance to see his other works. Which I'm looking forward to.

I don't think this is Peter Watkins's "best" film, exactly. It lacks the discipline and precision of "Edward Munch." But this is the purest example of the potential of Watkins's practice. Few films I've ever seen have felt as alive as a collaboration between a director and a group of performers. The non-actors, denizens of a working-class neighborhood of Paris, lived together and collaborated with Watkins as a legit, studio-based commune during their re-enactment of the events of Paris, 1871. In the film's second half, the reenactment subtly starts to occasionally give way to conversations between the performers during the course of the production. The past starts to seem truly "re-enacted," as the "present" seems to become part of a work of historical story-telling. In the final scenes, the actors seem to go into a kind of trance of fury as they sing revolutionary songs while awaiting to defend the city from Versailles' soldiers. Many turn to the camera and say that they would pick up guns to fight for a new commune in the present. As a viewer, I believed them.

This film also goes farther in its critique of media than Watkins' earlier films. All of Watkins's films feature a contemporary documentary camera crew interviewing historical figures in a way that is quite confrontationally unnatural. In the previous films, the (seemingly) Watkins-led camera crews were portrayed as the allies of "the people." Here, the larger canvas allows for a more nuanced critique of even "people's media." Two media outlets vie for the hegemony of the viewer: Versailles News and Commune TV. Even Commune TV, the "ragtag, independent" news outlet is presented as always veering towards the most relatively conservative seats of power. The Commune reporters consistently defend the (I think rather inappropriately maligned) "professional" Commune leadership from the masses. (As much as I admire Watkins, he is undeniably an ultra-leftist.) I wonder, however, if this more complex take on the media is not tied to the more complex layerings of "realities" in this work that I discussed in my first paragraph. For, unlike, in the earlier films, here the "progressive" media outlet (Commune TV) is not the "highest" reality, and therefor is not directly attached to Watkins himself. It is only part of the historical fiction that Watkins implements to show his performers embrace the political heritage of the Commune. In the scenes where the performers discuss their experiences of the production with each other, Watkins name is only ever mentioned with reverence. The filmmaker deepens his critique of media, but not of his place within it as a "radical saint."

Almost 6 hours long, this epic and enlighten looked at revolt and innovative political popular innovation and inspiring uprising of the commune in 19th century Paris is long and starts slow. It is self-reflective, free and breaks the 4th wall since the first frame and increasingly throughout the film.

The first part focuses on the background and beginning of the revolt and resistance. It explains the inequalities, the education gap, the history and bourgeois, military and blue collar vantage points.

Themes of women rights and education are abundantly explored and counterpoints are somewhat given although the work is clearly socialism and rightly so.

Mainstream media, its biases and impact are explored and although historically TV reporting did not exist at that time. adds an element of modernness, contrasted with the black and white and first-time actors in characters with costumes and minimal decor. The clear and more subtle subterfuge and power of religious authority is well confronted. Same as the military might and oppression as necessity versus violent resistance and what violence entails.

The nonprofessional actors who have been instructed to research their historical characters, the history and facts and to speak their own mind are asked to come out of characters many times in the second, slightly longer part and the beauty and brillance of the film is now in full boom.

Actors and characters discuss turn of the millennium and other 20th century realities like other resistances, fights, wars, repression and innovations including technology. Television, internet, mobile phones and the rest are pacifiers or cause for more unrest? What are we fighting for today and how will it be tomorrow? What and why should we fight? How? Within with morale compass and rules? Many crucial questions are raised and many valid points advanced. All of them still relevant and real today as in 1999 or 1871.

A must-watch film for any conscious moviegoer or any worldwide school children. Enjoy, think, discuss, share.