Let’s see…what’s a cool way to introduce an entirely new generation to the joys of Communism? I got it. A young hot version of that well-known rabble rouser, Karl Marx! The Young Karl Marx is a real movie that is actually happening, and it doesn’t look the least bit as enjoyable as Young Sherlock Holmes. Nothing is as fun as Young Sherlock Holmes.
The French-German production has a couple of names attached that should perk your ears up. First is director Raoul Peck, who helmed the amazing James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro. The second is Vicky Krieps, who starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread and practically stole the entire movie away from him. August Diehl (Allied) plays Karl Marx with Stefan Konarske as his friend Friedrich Engels who helped him write The Communist Manifesto.
Here’s the synopsis: At the age of 26, Karl Marx (August Diehl) embarks with his wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps) on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris they meet young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske), son of a factory owner and an astute student of the English proletariat class. Engels brings Marx the missing piece to the puzzle that composes his new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and police raids, riots and political upheavals, they will preside over the birth of the labor movement, which until then had been mostly makeshift and unorganized. This will grow into the most complete theoretical and political transformation of the world since the Renaissance – driven, against all expectations, by two brilliant, insolent and sharp-witted young men.
The Young Karl Marx opens February 23rd in New York at The Metrograph and Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal with a national rollout later. [ThePlaylist]
