Reed: Insurgent Mexico

Before Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed went to Mexico to witness his first revolution. Leduc’s debut, shot independently in 16mm, shows the march of History in a different way: to be in the centre of such an event means to see everything and nothing. Amos Vogel wrote in his seminal book Film as a Subversive Art: “We enter into the true realities of the Mexican (or any other) revolution: lulls and confusions, bumpy roads, unexpected death, sudden friendships, and meandering half-actions. The sentiment is anti-folklorist, anti-sentimental, anti-heroic; and, therefore, closer to revolutionary reality”.