A ghost hunt through ruins where revolution still whispers.
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.
Direction
Lallaoui's reverse journey from exile to origin.
Cinematography
Ruins in New Caledonia echo Parisian barricades.
Writing
Dalotel's expertise woven into personal pilgrimage.
Director
Medhi Lallaoui
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Paris Commune remains so politically charged in France that no national memorial existed until 2021.
Dalotel died exactly 149 years after the Commune's final massacre—May 29, 1871 to May 29, 2020.
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