1867

The French painter Edouard Manet painted four canvases depicting the execution in 1867 of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico This short dramatic film evokes the artists studio and the events of Maximilians death using a single uninterrupted shot to present the artistic thought process through the eyes of the painter The narration written by the films director takes the form of an imagined interior monologue presented in voiceover style in French and German with English subtitles It alludes to the narrative historical and visual texts that Manet drew upon to form his four versions of the painting