Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
The best of Time Out straight to your inbox
We help you navigate a myriad of possibilities. Sign up for our newsletter for the best of the city.
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
McMullen's film about the Paris Commune offers a stirring rendition of the 'Internationale' sung, at a moment of seeming defeat, by the actors in Ramborde's Theatre in Paris, as reactionary government forces close in to remove, as it were, the masses from the stage of history. McMullen depicts the events of those heady days - from the assassination of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico in 1867, through the crazy Franco-Prussian war, to the crushing of the communards - as a farcical theatrical event, taking his cue, no doubt, from Marx's famous remarks about how history repeats itself (his words themselves repeated imperiously by a black Marx played by director Med Hondo). In and out of Ramborde's Theatre or the nearby Café Anglais, a gallery of historical cut-outs impersonates the various mighty forces at work in society. It's a grand, ambitious, three-act, sub-Brechtian affair, which exhibits the McMullen trademarks: a painterly eye, an unashamed taste for Big Ideas and allusive puns, and a tendency to lapse into obscurity and pretentiousness.
Release Details
Duration:100 mins
Cast and crew
Director:Ken McMullen
Screenwriter:Terry James, James Leahy, Ken McMullen
Cast:
Roshan Seth
John Lynch
Timothy Spall
Alexandre de Sousa
Maria de Medeiros
Ian McNeice
Ana Padrao
Jack Klaff
Dominique Pinon
Med Hondo
Lutz Becker
Advertising
Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!