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Commune

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95% Tomatometer 21 Reviews 47% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Filmmaker Jonathan Berman examines communal living through the history and accomplishments of California's Black Bear Ranch, founded in the late 1960s.
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Critics Reviews

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Bill Stamets Chicago Sun-Times Commune channels a bygone era of drop-outs living an American dream on the Free Love frontier. This is the happy alternative to the apocalyptic California sub-cultures of Charles Manson and the Rev. Jim Jones. Rated: 3/4 Feb 23, 2007 Full Review G. Allen Johnson San Francisco Chronicle Watching Jonathan Berman's affectionate documentary, Commune, about the influential establishment in Siskiyou County, brought to mind the recent documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. Rated: 3/4 Feb 23, 2007 Full Review Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune Commune gets at the central, seductive paradoxes inherent in so much counterculture belief and practice. Rated: 3.5/4 Feb 22, 2007 Full Review Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Commune offers an intriguing, time-capsule look at an egalitarian group of people attempting to find their groove. Rated: 3.5/4 Jul 10, 2025 Full Review David Lamble Bay Area Reporter A fascinating subplot involves the slow but steady evolution of the female members' sense of their power. May 21, 2020 Full Review Frank Lovece Film Journal International Kinda down-to-earth comments make Commune kinda intriguing. Mar 1, 2007 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Stephen C Real footage in 1 hour and 18 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/19/25 Full Review Audience Member Well assembled and interesting. The big grin happens when they are raided and the fuzz confiscate all their *tomato* plants. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member I understand these people. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Totally missed opportunity to document one of the late 60's experiments. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Perhaps because of my hippy upbringing, there is a certain aspect of commune living that appeals to me. My better judgment tells me that the togetherness would probably drive me insane since I am a solitary person by nature. But I find the topic fascinating in the abstract and enjoyed this doc immensely. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member COMMUNE did the trick for me, even though it also seriously disappointed. I've been waiting for a long time for a movie that suggests the scope of our amazing intentions and our earnest dedication to creating a new world, with little to guide us, no formal leadership, and little to support us in the effort. I am a veteran of urban collectives (Washington DC, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland), as opposed to rural communes such as the one memorialized in this film. The difference is profound, of course, but the similarities are also remarkable. It's impossible to describe to folks who "weren't there" how uniform our precepts were, across the country and between venues, and all of it decades before the Internet! This movie kicked up so many memories, observations, questions, thoughts, and new perspectives, that I can't adequately summarize my experience with it, and it isn't over yet. As for COMMUNE's one huge disappointment? I had been longing to hear actual dialogue from the day. What was preserved here is silent (and salacious) footage clearly taken by a male of the group (and all of us feminists were very aware that sexism was the biggest and oldest bear of 'em all). When you consider that all we did all day long in the urban counterpart "families" was "shoot the holy sh*t," -- constantly analyzing, with thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and all that jazz -- well, that's a very large gap, and a misrepresentation of what the movement -- as I experienced it -- was all about. If you want an idea of how we thought (and talked and spent our time and energy), listen to a few of the women who were quoted from the present day. There are still glimpses there of the language we used and traces of the earnestness Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Commune

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Movie Info

Synopsis Filmmaker Jonathan Berman examines communal living through the history and accomplishments of California's Black Bear Ranch, founded in the late 1960s.
Director
Jonathan Berman
Producer
Jonathan Berman
Distributor
First Run Features
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
May 5, 2006, Limited
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
Jul 11, 2025
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 17, 2020
Runtime
1h 18m