La Commune

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.