La Commune
Directed by Peter Watkins 
(2001)
This 345 minute long movie directed
by Peter Watkins is a creative attempt to
explore the short-lived history of the
1871 Paris Commune. The film is largely
shot in “you are there” style as if by
nineteenth-century journalists. It’s a
collage of interviews, public debates,
high-society discussions, mainstream
media news coverage clips, etc. The
movie offers a dynamic and broad vision
of the Paris Commune in its historical
and political context.

The film covers a range of ideological
perspectives from the working class to
the bourgeoisie and explores tensions
within alliances formed during the
Commune. It captures debates within the
Commune over the role of mediaspecifically,
the importance of people’s
media in shaping revolutionary politics.
The Commune also debates the
revolutionary feminism and how to
combat patriarchal ideas.

Perhaps one of the most important
issues raised by the movie are the
Commune’s internal problems which led
to its slaughter by the French state. La
Commune exposes the bankruptcy of the
anarchist ideal of an immediate leap to
stateless society without seizing state
power to defend the revolution. This
criticism is voiced by one of the
participants of the last meeting of the
Commune who bitterly throws out his
disagreement with the fact that it is
anarcho-communist principles and not
the achievements of the revolution that
end up being defended [by not taking
authoritarian measures]. Another pitfall
of the Commune that becomes apparent
in the panic and organizational chaos
preceding its downfall is the absence of
a vanguard leadership armed with
revolutionary theory and a clear sense of
strategy, a centralized structure and a
mass support network outside the city.
“Everyone debates no one obeys,” says
another member of the Commune that
finds itself increasingly paralyzed due to
a backlog of orders and counter-orders
and tensions between the Central
Committee of the National Guard on the
one hand and the administrative body of
the Commune, on the other hand.

The movie makes a point of reflecting
on the experience of the Paris Commune
within the context of the present day
world situation. At various instances
throughout the film actors start talking
as themselves, analyzing their characters’
acts, strategic issues as well as drawing
parallels and lessons from the
Commune’s fall. Another actress talks
about the educational value of her casting
experience and mentions that the
dramatic outcome of the movie inspired
her to turn to Lenin’s State and
Revolution in search for strategic
answers. Other issues that actors touch
upon in their discussions of the film are
the issue of undocumented immigrants
in contemporary France and police
brutality.

From the formal point of view, this selfreference
trick as well as the actors’
selection—a lot of them are unpaid
amateurs including undocumented
immigrants—gives the status quo view
of movie making an interesting twist.
Taking a cue from Brecht’s experimental
“learning plays,” the filming process
itself becomes an educational endeavor
where actors get to elaborate the script
based on individually conducted research
and study politics via debate and
discussion of political issues raised
throughout the movie.