The Revolution Devours Its Children!

Preceding the feature film, Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder! was an eponymous theater production, staged by director Jan-Christoph Gockel at the Schauspielhaus Graz in 2018, which already integrated scenes from the film shoot in Burkina Faso. In the version produced specifically for the screen, a director (Julia Gräfner) plans a performance of Georg Büchner’s revolutionary drama Danton’s Tod in Ouagadougou, with marionettes as actors. Through the transfer to Africa, Gockel conveys the main idea of the revolutionary drama, namely, the erosion and cannibalization of reformist ideas, within a postcolonial discourse. He questions the extent to which Büchner’s play (including his enlightenment postulate) can be exported from Europe to a country like Burkina Faso, which is ruled by an autocratic dictator. And why this patronizing gesture is bound to fail.