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Bookmark this pageLa Commune (1999)
Director: Peter Watkins
Movie review
From Time Out London
What looks likely to be the final film from the director of ‘The War Game’ returns in style to Watkins’ first feature, the provocative and committed ‘Culloden’. He adopts a similar framing device – the television presentation of a historical event – to explore the rise and fall of the 1871 Paris Commune. Around 200 citizens from the relevant districts reconstruct the events in a film that rigorously interrogates media authority, political power and personal responsibility. Fluidly shot in crisp monochrome, it builds a remarkable sense of popular participation (reflected in its communal making) in a seminal historical moment and deals head on with both how one makes a revolution actually work and similarly how it is betrayed by hierarchical interests.Author:
Time Out London Issue 1820: July 6-13 2005
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