L'état et moi

Around Berlin Mitte, something extraordinary has happened. The (fictional) composer Hans List, a musical Victor Hugo stand-in, has suddenly reappeared after going missing in 1871. As an early flashback shows, that same year, the Prime Minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck passed the new criminal law and the emperor of Prussia, Wilhelm I, was afraid that the Parisian protests would reach Germany. List, who was living in the Parisian commune, was labelled an outlaw and meant to be arrested. List immediately gets into trouble, as he accidentally stomps a German flag on fire, a deed that is deemed a terrorist affront against the state. He is put in front of judge Josephine Praetorius Camusot, whose resemblance to List is uncanny.

Susanne Gottlieb, Cineuropa