LEFT FILM NIGHT CELEBRATES THE 200TH BIRTHDAY OF KARL MARX (May 5, 1818)

Fresh off the success of his James Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, Haitian-born director Raoul Peck tackles the early days of the friendship between Karl Marx (August Diehl) and Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske) as they struggle to establish the Communist Party and complete the Communist Manifesto. In his mid-20s, Marx was already a veteran of the class wars when he met—and initially disliked—the dapper, 22-year-old Engels, son of a rich textile manufacturer. From the smoky cafés of Paris, to the socialist enclaves of London, where Marx lived in exile, these two revolutionaries and their families, friends and comrades begin the task of reshaping the world. Of particular interest is the critical role of women (notably Vicky Krieps as Jenny von Westphalen)  in creating the communist theory and building the movements which carried it into the working class.

In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw writes, “[A] sinewy and intensely focused, uncompromisingly cerebral period drama… This is a film which sticks to a credo that people arguing about theories and concepts—while also periodically angrily rejecting the notion of mere abstraction—is highly interesting. And Peck and Bonitzer pull off the considerable trick of making it interesting, aided by very good performances from Diehl and Konarske… [This] fervent film… shouldn’t work, but it does, due to the intelligence of the acting and the stamina and concentration of the writing and directing.”

(2017, 118 minutes, directed by Raoul Peck, France/Belgium/Germany)