COMMUNISTS
A film by Jean-Marie Straub
2014, 70 minutes
2014, 70 minutes
No. 103
Narrative
Narrative
Description
Communists comprises six scenes concerning resistance to “forms of domination and violence of man on man,” including Communist prisoners who face down their Fascist interrogators during World War II; Egyptian workers and peasants who revolt against their colonial exploiters in 1919; and Italian Alpine communities who in 1967 refuse to show mercy on the Nazis who butchered their families during the war.
Straub focuses on the precipitous moment when men and women must choose between self-sacrifice and annihilation. He suggests that survival from oppression, and faith in the fantastical dream of a “new Earth” — the nascence of popular resistance — can perhaps come through music, the joy of a child’s touch, a walk in the country, a will of the imagination.
Straub focuses on the precipitous moment when men and women must choose between self-sacrifice and annihilation. He suggests that survival from oppression, and faith in the fantastical dream of a “new Earth” — the nascence of popular resistance — can perhaps come through music, the joy of a child’s touch, a walk in the country, a will of the imagination.
