FRANCE, ITALY, POLAND
LA PETITE APOCALYPSE
1993 – 35mm – c - 105’
Direction: Constantin Costa Gavras
Screenplay: Jean-Claude Grumberg, Constantin Costa-Gavras; based on the same novel by Konwicki Tadeusz
Cinematography: Patrick Blossier
Editing: Joële Van Effenterre
Set design: Philippe Chiffre
Music: Philippe Sarde
Costumes: Edith Vespérini
Cast: André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Barbara Romantowska
Production: Kg Productions, Nickelodeon, He-Ritage Films
SYNOPSIS
Sten, a unacknowledged Polish writer, has left Poland, seeking a temporary refuge in Paris, in the attic of the beautiful house of Barbara, his Polish ex-wife, now married to Henry, a former left-winger bourgeois, disappointed and demotivated. During a party offered by Barbara and Henry to their friends, Stan goes to the attic in order to escape to the fatuous political conversation of the guests, and in the attempt to replace the only electric lamp in his precarious accommodation, falls from the improvised scaffolding, provoking a short circuit and a fire. The guests soon think to an attempted suicide: they are all alarmed for that desperate gesture and all full of attentions for the unaware Stan. Jacques has an idea: as Stan wants to commit suicide, why not make of him a martyr of the system? He should set himself on fire in Rome, in St Peter’s square, during the World Ecumenical Day, under the eyes of the Polish Pope and of thousand of TV viewers.
CRITICAL NOTE
“(…) Costa Gavras has surprised all his admirers with a film that ‘dares’ reflect on the veterans of the protest movement of 1968, making also use of the grotesque. Very low success of public and critic for a film which instead deserves a careful reading.” (Pino Farinotti)
