GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Fulke Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Mort & Spunky the awesome cat This film is a perfect example of how to take a fascinating subject, come up with 25 minutes of substantive material and stretch it into a six hour borefest resembling the shape a documentary might take if Fox news decided to make one. Even the participants in this obnoxiously obstreperous film can't conceal their laughter at the stupidity of their attempt to show one of the few great times in world history where people take a stand and work to make a better world. If only the creators had spoken with Ken Burns for 5 minutes, they might have come out with something mildly intelligent instead of this cure for insomnia.

george karpouzas I am trying to remember when I first heard about this film. I think in Frech periodicals when an anniversary of the Commune took place. Latter there was mention of Peter Watkins in a French cinematic magazine- I think Cahiers du Cinema- which I saw and failed to buy. Finally I ordered the film from the organization that Peter Watkins has set up for the promotion of the film, Rebonde pour la Commune. Reflecting on another viewers comment they were not very commercially minded as Harry Potter for example.But the movie was worth it. It is absolutely of the beaten track. Although the events are known to anyone even relatively familiar with modern French history the rendering of the events by the filmmaker is based on two supremely ingenious innovations-one, the idea of transplanting audiovisual journalism in the 19th century- the device of introducing an official TV channel backing the government line and also two young journalists with microphones speaking and interviewing the Communards while the revolution was happening.Two,the idea of making the actors relate their cinematic experience as revolutionary actors with the present political conjecture.Those two ideas were very impressive although the second destroys the momentary suspension of disbelief on which every spectacle is based but that device of exposing the illusory character of a public spectacle has been known since the time of Aristophanes. I do not find it personally the most preferable but I think in such a movie it has a place. As for the idea of introducing modern media in the 19th century visual narrative, I found it brilliant since displayed the ability of modern propaganda devices in a earlier historical setting.The propaganda powers of the moving visual image is something historically unequaled- one can not compare its power with the pictures of biblical themes in the interiors of medieval churches or with the suggestion created by statues and temples in antiquity-Augustan Rome for example.Modern historians of the Commune have as sources the written word, the press and photographs that existed then and were used by the police to identify suspects. But film is another story-I can not remember if Watkins cites his sources but the movie follows a factual rendering of the Commune day by day and this is how it is structured with the emissions of the media used as interludes. An admirable achievement. P.S. I can not but observe the difference between this movie and the film about Marie-Antoinette. Of course the perspective was different since the film about the Queen was pro-royalist while the film about the Commune was pro-revolutionary but many other differences existed. The film of Watkins was based on the assumption that history is made by the masses whose action he tried to portray while Coppola's film was based on the assumption that history is made b personalities- by members of the ruling elites, since crowds- not smart crowds- but real crowds appear only once in Coppla's movie and then only in terrifying and then malleable fashion.I can not imagine a more fundamental difference of rendering events related to two of the major French Revolutions- a tribute to the richness of life and art that seeks to portray it.

thaddeus_welles Truly exceptional film making really breaking down the barriers of what is storytelling and letting everything run free. Peter Watkins does what would seem the impossible, not only create a realistic re-enactment of the commune in Paris (just after the siege of the Prussians and the exile of the bourgeois to Versailles) using only an abandoned warehouse and 200 odd unemployed French citizens and illegal immigrants but also to on top of that add a detailed and amazing social experiment. Putting these people through this experience and then have them portray not only their 1871 characters but also themselves in the one film. To hear these people talk about life today and draw parallels between the film they are making and the lives they lead is quite invaluable information. And as if that alone wasn't enough there is the whole other element of the media and how sides are formed and why people believe what they do and how things are taught and passed down so that divides never seem to cease. The use of reporting and television and newspapers really give this film a whole other level from which to operate and constantly throughout the film one has to ask themselves "who do I believe, do I believe anyone" "why am i believing what this person says and not this person" then as if one hasn't had enough thinking to do already you then, like the cast, have to project forward to today and ask yourself who do i believe when it comes to the reporting of current events? Am I receiving an accurate picture of what is occurring? I don't think anyone who offers themselves up to this 6 hour masterpiece can look at the media in quite the same way. Once again I just have to say this film is without a doubt set to become a masterpiece to filmmaking and I urge anyone who happens to see it on a program for a festival or perhaps even on television to sacrifice those few hours, you wont be disappointed. Also is you are left in awe after its viewing as I was then look out for the Universal Clock- The Resistance of Peter Watkins, it acts as a sort of "making of" but is a film in its own right and gives insight to what it was like to be involved in the making of Le Commune Paris 1871

amelagar 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.