Cinema
კომუნარის ჩიბუხი
Kote Marjanishvili · 1929
Synopsis
Paris, 1870. The city is under siege, the war against the Prussians is lost, hunger sets in and the people take up arms. At the fort holding the barricade, a mason serves the artillery piece with his four-year-old son underfoot; the grandfather, also a mason, fell on the barricades of 1848. A pipe passes from hand to hand among the insurgents, and it is through the pipe that the film follows the men of the Commune.
Context
The story comes from a tale by Ilya Ehrenburg, whose title is taken over unchanged, and the film shows Paris between 1870 and 1871, the siege, the famine and the fall of the Commune. It is the sixth and last film of its director, a man of the theatre who made films for only five years and whose work belongs first to the stage. The sets are by Valerian Sidamon-Eristavi and the cinematography by Sergei Zabozlaev; Ushangi Chkheidze plays the mason, with Veriko Anjaparidze and Tamar Chavchavadze. The premiere took place on 30 July 1929.
Who it is for
A silent film, with Georgian intertitles. It is worth knowing that the Paris insurrection of 1871 counted, in the history the Soviet Union told itself, as the first revolution of the proletariat.
Prizes and reception
The last of the six films by a man who above all refounded the theatre of his country, and one of the Georgian silent films that international retrospectives still programme.