The movie is based on the graphic novel of the same name, also created by director Raphaël Meyssan, with the same principles:
- It exclusively uses period engravings, enhanced in the movie with lights, shadows, perspective and movements (snow, rain, clouds, birds, fire, smoke, flags, bullets, explosions, etc.);
- The parts narrated by a woman are extracted from the memoirs of Victorine Brocher who participated to the Paris Commune revolution, «Souvenir d'une morte vivante» (Memory of a living dead).