Arquivo

1987 revisited 2008 - This is the American Revolution that took place a little before ours did. We learn about it in France. All we know is that La Fayette took part. It was a revolution against the English who occupied American territory as a colony. And it is an English film maker, Hugh Hudson, who tells the story. Without making concessions to his co-patriots, they seem arrogant and cruel, subject to the blindness that so often smites those who believe in their own rights. This gives rise to an astounding film, agitated, like an unexpected ambush, when death is there, close to where the camera is, seemingly lost in the battle field like a lost gaze. Jean-Claude Carrière Revolution was misunderstood and unjustly treated on its first appearance over twenty years. Seeing it again in the director’s slightly revised version, it now strikes me as a masterpiece – profound, poetic and original. Hudson’s film should take its place among the great movies about history and the experience of individual citizens living in times of dramatic social change. One hopes it will finally find the wide audience it deserves. Philip French