Utopia Isn’t Easy—but It Was Worth Trying

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MOVIE REVIEW
Commune: A Portrait of Idealism, 20th Anniversary Restoration
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Genre: Documentary
Year Released: 2005, 2025, 20th Anniversary Restoration
Runtime: 1h 18m
Director(s): Jonathan Berman
Where to Watch: opens nationally beginning July 11, 2025, at NYC's DCTV Firehouse Cinema, followed by Cities Across the Country

RAVING REVIEW: Jonathan Berman’s COMMUNE isn’t here to romanticize the 1960s dream. It’s a grounded, occasionally chaotic, often funny, and ultimately reflective look at what happens when idealism meets real-life logistics—and how the people involved in that collision try to make sense of it all. Returning in a 20th anniversary restoration, the film offers a compelling, if uneven, meditation on the intersection of politics, personal freedom, and communal responsibility, framed through Black Bear Ranch's experiment.

This isn’t your typical historical documentary. COMMUNE eschews the traditional for something much more immersive and human. Through interviews and raw archival footage, it captures the contradictions and triumphs of a counterculture determined to live outside the norms of American society. It’s part oral history, part confessional, and part group therapy session for a generation that tried to upend everything, starting with how they lived, loved, and raised children.

What sets the film apart is its refusal to mythologize its subjects. The former residents of Black Bear Ranch, including painter Elsa Marley and actor Peter Coyote, speak with a kind of weathered honesty about the highs and lows of communal living. We’re not presented with revolutionaries or one-dimensional dropouts. These were individuals with wildly different motivations, and their utopia came with plenty of interpersonal landmines: ideological clashes, romantic entanglements, culture shock, and the real threat of survival in the harsh wilderness of Northern California.

There’s a rawness to how COMMUNE reflects the nature of Black Bear itself. It wasn’t a perfect social project but a messy, experimental endeavor in self-governance, gender dynamics, and cultural reinvention. Some members came to escape the draft, others were driven by fear of state violence in the cities. All brought baggage. And that tension between freedom and function gives the film its edge.

The newly restored version, timed to a moment when communal experiments feel relevant again in the face of growing isolation and political disillusionment, underscores that sense of cyclical urgency. In the age of gig work, smart homes, and algorithmic everything, a return to something tangible—even if flawed—feels almost rebellious. As the film notes, communal living might have fallen out of fashion, but the questions it raises about capitalism, belonging, and shared purpose haven’t gone away.

COMMUNE isn’t without its weak spots. Structurally, the film tends to roam. At times, it becomes so embedded in the details of Black Bear’s internal politics—who slept with whom, whose turn it was to cook—that the broader commentary takes a backseat. While these intimate moments help build a portrait of daily life, they occasionally threaten to distract from the larger stakes. That said, when the film finds its groove—especially in its quieter, reflective moments—it lands with impact.

One of the more sobering elements the film handles is the reality of unintended consequences. Communal parenting, for instance, is portrayed with empathy but not rose-colored glasses. Tesliya Hanuer describes her upbringing as joyful; Aaron Marley, the son of founders Richard and Elsa, recalls it with a rougher perspective, likening it to being a lab rat in someone else’s experiment. This duality is the film's heart—idealism seen through the filter of age and experience, optimism tempered by hindsight.

The presence of the cult group Shiva Lila offers one of the film’s darker turns. It warns about how open-door policies can also welcome manipulation and exploitation. Yet even this doesn’t tip the film into sensationalism. Instead, it remains grounded, letting the survivors recount their own story, which keeps the tone authentic rather than judgmental.

It doesn’t suggest that we should all abandon society for the hills. It doesn’t hold Black Bear Ranch up as a flawless template. Instead, it invites viewers to ask deeper questions about how we live and what we’re willing to sacrifice for a better world. The filmmaker himself, raised in the suburbs and admittedly an outsider to the commune lifestyle, uses that distance to his advantage. Rather than insert himself into the narrative, he allows the voices of the past to lead, offering a surprisingly democratic documentary experience.

COMMUNE doesn’t deliver easy answers—but it doesn’t need to. It reminds us that chasing an ideal is messy, often painful, occasionally absurd, and worth remembering. There’s power in revisiting that vulnerability, especially now, when division and disillusionment feel overwhelming.

An absorbing and complex portrait of a radical social experiment, COMMUNE balances storytelling with rough edges. It offers a timely and thought-provoking experience, even if it sometimes loses momentum. Its value lies in the questions it raises and the emotional honesty it maintains throughout.

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[photo courtesy of FIRST RUN FEATURES]

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