Documentary Film Director’s Note
“Entertainment in Public”
This documentary is not about the guillotine.
Within this narrative the guillotine exists merely as a historical object an instrument that emerged at a particular moment in history under the promise of justice and equality yet gradually became one of the most recognizable symbols of institutionalized violence. What matters to us is neither its blade nor its wooden frame nor the mechanics of its operation but the question that takes shape in its shadow:
Why has humanity throughout history repeatedly turned death into a spectacle?
The film begins with a personal encounter: a visit to an exhibition titled Entertainment in Public and the resurfacing of a distant memory, a crowd gathered to witness an execution. From that moment the documentary embarks on a journey through the French Revolution, the history of the guillotine and ultimately our own present.
Along the way, through the work of Taha Zaker, the guillotine is examined as a historical artifact born from the ideals of the Enlightenment only to become the embodiment of a profound contradiction:
How can the defense of humanity come to depend on the destruction of human life?
This documentary does not seek to reconstruct the history of France nor does it attempt to pass judgment on the past. Its true subject is the persistence of a particular logic, a logic that treats punishment as a solution, legitimizes violence and transforms the public witnessing of another person’s suffering into a cultural ritual.
The central question of the film is deceptively simple, yet its answer remains elusive: If centuries of executions have failed to eradicate crime, violence or ignorance, why do societies continue to return to them? Why do some of the oldest instruments of punishment still survive in new forms within the modern world? And perhaps most importantly, why does humanity remain fascinated by the spectacle of power disciplining another human body?
This documentary is an attempt to reflect on the memory of violence, the relationship between punishment and performance and the unsettling reality that while the tools of history may change, the logic behind them often remains intact.
The guillotine may have disappeared from the public squares of Europe long ago, but the questions it left behind continue to resonate: questions about justice, power, punishment and the human condition.
Rather than asking its audience simply to watch, this film invites them to pause, reflect and reconsider a history that has never truly come to an end.
At its core, the documentary is built around an exploration of Entertainment in Public an exhibition by Taha Zaker whose work serves as the primary point of departure for the film’s investigation into violence, spectacle and collective memory.
Majid Barzegar