Civil Wars in France
Three episodes from the history of socialism: Babeuf, whose virulent discourse is a radical assessment of the bourgeois revolution of 1789 (Vincent Nordon episode); the legend of Napoleon I, or the formation of the state as it still dominates today (François Barat episode); and the carnage of the Paris Commune, which official history strives to repress and forget (Joël Farges episode). What does it mean to make a historical film today? It means illuminating the present in the light of the past, and therefore adopting the new modes of modern storytelling to challenge what dominates us, structures us, and oppresses us.
Les déportés de la Commune
La Commune de Paris 1871
Mehdi Lallaoui's documentary begins where it all ended, in New Caledonia, with images of the ruins of the penal colony where many Commune insurgents were deported, including Louise Michel. The director thus tracks down all the still visible traces of the insurrectional movement, in the South Pacific but especially in Paris, by following Alain Dalotel, author of numerous works on the Commune (and who died on May 29, 2020 in Bagnolet). He also tracks down all the archives, allowing us to understand, with the means of communication and information of the time (and with a voice-over by Bernard Langlois), what contemporaries experienced between March and May 1871: their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their anger.