Karl Marx, young and angry

Thiruvananthapuram: For those who didn’t know his story well, young Karl Marx comes across as a man he is supposed to be – angry, intelligent, disagreeing, poor. What perhaps comes as a bit of surprise is his constant affection for the family, unexpected in the lives of genius world-changers. The film, in his name, ‘Young Karl Marx’ comes from director Raoul Peck whose documentary ‘I am not Your Negro’ on the life of James Baldwin was nominated for the Oscars. Peck goes on to make ‘another difficult film’ with Young Karl Marx that is featured in the 22nd IFFK, and is already making quite a name among the audience.

For it’s Marx, the man who wrote Das Kapital, and this is Kerala that elected the first communist government in the country. Young Marx’s story is mostly told through his friendship with Friedrich Engels, the man he wrote The Communist Manifesto with. It is the 1840s and the paper Marx works for is shutting down – banned for a particularly critical article on the Russian monarchy. We travel through the years with Marx, skimping through Europe, till just before he hits 30. We see him in France, happy with his wife Jenny, and a baby girl, writing for a leftist newspaper by Arnold Ruge. It is in Ruge’s house he meets Engels, where the two start off with a bitter memory of an earlier meeting but then admit their admiration for each other, and turn into lifelong friends.

There is a lot of dialogue, gripping one-liners, smart speeches. And Marx comes off as a really nice man. Too nice perhaps, for you expect constant outbursts in a revolutionary. There are his moments of anger thrown at the likes of Wilhelm Weitling when he uses proto-communism and evangelism to attract the people. There is also his series of friendly disagreements with Proudhon, the father of anarchism. He writes The Poverty of Philosophy as a reply to Proudhon’s The Philosophy of Poverty.

Peck who grew up with Marx while studying in Germany, appears to have been taken by his friendship with Engels, showing both their individual stories detailed with the love lives, and the story of making history together, tirelessly. A viewer watches in constant fear of a fiery argument breaking out between the two for Marx can stand barely anyone, as Jenny tells Engels once, he has brought no one home before. Together they first write ‘The Holy Family’ that at first Jenny names ‘Critique of the Critical Critique’.  Perhaps the most spriteful moment in the film comes when Engels announces the Communist League, reconstituting the League of the Just that they have both been part of, the famous red colour spreading in the background with the new name.