I knew nothing about Karl Marx before watching this film. I only know a very little about communism. Two years ago, I read their mission statement online for the first time. I was surprised to see it is the same statement as the Catholic Church. So, I must wonder, did Karl Marx come from poor parents? Were they religious? The film never gives us a history of his childhood, so I have no way of knowing why he associated with a dissenters newspaper. I was delighted with this film, and surprised. Fred Engels pressured Karl Marx to write the communist manifesto. They fight about this at the end of the film. Mr. Engels is not struggling to earn money. Mr. Marx is, and feels pressured to earn money from writting. He has a family to care for. Mr. Marx challenges Mr. Proudhon's communist ideas about private property at the Republican speakers meeting. At this meeting, Mr. Proudhon claims private property is the enemy of the public, and that it is anti-social. Marx then wonders aloud to Mr. Proudhon what he is stealing if he takes another man's property. This shocked me because the communist propaganda was from Proudon, not Marx. Marx is countering the argument. Throughout the film, Marx calls himself a materialist. He wants stuff. He needs money. That's more like capitalism than communism. So, by the end of the film, it looks like Marx was dragged into the communist party against his will. In the last 30 minutes of the film, Fred Engels demands an opportunity to speak at a meeting for The League of The Just. He had been ordered not to speak by party leaders. Fred Engels and his followers then take down The League of The Justs' flag and replaces it with a Communist flag as Karl Marx watches, passively, from the audience. Fred Engels is far more active politically than Mr. Marx is throughout the film. Engels is especially bold with older establishment figures, i.e., the scene in the men's club when he threatens the staff. That Engels' family is the owner of textile mills instead of Marx makes this viewer wonder how Marx came to form his political views. Would his views on labor have been the same without Engels' influence? Throughout the film there are homosexual innuendos. I get the impression Marx and Engels were lovers, as Mrs. Ruge comments that they met in her kitchen. She turns away from the camera and stops talking, which shuts down any further investigation. They then say they met in Berlin. At video minute 1:20:13, at the Workers party meeting with Weitling, Krieger, Grun, Engels, Mary Burns, Karl, and Jenny, Marx makes a point of offending Weitling. Mr. Weitling leaves the meeting enraged. Mary and Jenny are shocked. They ask what just happened. Engels and Marx start laughing. I wondered what happened as well. This argument between Marx and Weitling looks more like a homo-erotic power play for world domination than a communal attempt to alleviate workers suffering. Why alienate Weitling? Comparing this scene to the coup at The League of The Just meeting, Engels looks more like an anarchist or a trade spy instead of a labor leader. Someone yells "Long live George Sand" after Engels' speach. (I know George Sand was a crossdressing female.) Together with the other sexual innuendos, it confirms my suspicions that these attendees were not members of the existing craft guilds. They were the outcasts. This matters because the craft guilds are never mentioned in the film, but workers rights and communism is. For honest people, it's no conflict for laborers to make a profit. So what's the big deal? Both Mr. Proudhon and Mr. Marx mention starvation of the laborers. No honest boss would starve his employees. A new picture of the labor activists in this film emerges from the fog. They are not negotiating with the textile mill owners. This would have been very easy to do, as Mr. Engels' father owned the mills. So why not talk to him? Marx and Engels look more like provocateurs instead of labor leaders. I loved the sex scene with Karl and Jenny. There was nothing wrong with it. As a viewer, passing through this process of the sex, watching Marx with his baby, then the labor and delivery of their second child, then comparing these domestic scenes with the conversation between Mary Burns and Jenny Marx at the beach, (where Jenny is shocked when Mary says her sister will have children with Fred Engels), by this time, we should know this is why the establishment condescends to the lower classes, because they plan on disobeying. Marx calls himself a materialist. This is enlightening, together with the fact that we never see either Engels' or Marx working in a trade other than writing. Not that writing is any less labor, but it's not factory work. The point being, they wrote about factory workers from outside the industry. It's nice they were so empathetic to the laborers cause, but they did not live that life. They were outsiders. Engels' was factory owner. There are some assumptions that need attention. The first assumption is that the Bourgeoisie do not work. The director makes Mr. Engels' Sr. Appear to be a bully. We never see him in anguish over the fights with his employees. The next assumption is the Bourgeoisie do not suffer. We never see Mr. Engels Senior in anguish, suffering over the events with his son. We never see him in private, asking for advice, in a conversation with a wife or friend about the fight with his son. This omission is very important. Mr. Engels Senior has been cast as cold hearted, because they gave no screen time to him in private or in anguish.
Review of The Young Karl Marx
