A meditation on revolutionary fervor, adapted from the Tolstoy story by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN stars Guilio Brogi as Giulio Manieri. An aristocrat by birth, he is the impassioned leader of an anarchist movement in 1875 Italy. When his threadbare forces are defeated in the attempted takeover of a village, Guilio kills the mayor with a Parthian shot. Although condemned to die, the anarchist has his sentence changed to life in prison by the governor, who is trying to avoid creating a martyr. Locked in solitary confinement, Giulio makes the hours pass by fantasizing about a glorious future in which his actions will be regarded as heroic, even holding imaginary conversations with fellow partisans who assure him of his place in the pantheon of anarchism. After a decade of incarceration, Giulio boards a boat to be relocated to another prison, and encounters a younger group of dissidents, who have foresworn his brand of revolutionary extremism for a more pragmatic, reformist politics. Naturally, this comes as a sobering revelation to the firebrand. A distanced contemplation of revolutionary politics, ST. MICHAEL HAD A ROOSTER is a powerful, meaningful film.

• Berlin International Film Festival 1972 (Berlin, Germany)