The events leading up to the writing of a book is not exactly the kind of subject that a film buff would jump at. But then, The Communist Manifesto is not just another book, nor are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels mere authors. Thus there was quite a lot of buzz generated around the film The Young Karl Marx at various festivals, reflected in the long queues at its screenings at the 22nd International Film Festival of Kerala.
Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, known for making stirring films on the lives of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba and writer James Baldwin, focusses his attention on a much shorter period here, the five years leading up to the writing of The Communist Manifesto.
It is as much a chronicle of the battle of ideas which preceded its writing, as it is of the personal struggles of the duo involved in it. We see more images of Marx worrying about his precarious financial situation and his inability to provide for his family, than images of him grappling with economic concepts. For Engels though, it is a struggle of a different kind, fighting against his father who oppresses workers in his factory.
The opening scene, of men on horses brutally attacking a group of people collecting wood in the forest, gives the viewer ideas of a different kind of film, where slogans would ring loud amid images of uprisings of the have-nots. But the uprisings are just mentioned as reports, while the film stays focussed on the lives of Marx and Engels. The roles played by their partners Jenny and Mary is depicted at length.
The movie successfully breaks the image of the two serious men, familiar to us from photographs, bringing alive their friendship, their romances, their quirkiness and the factors which fuelled that seminal work.