LA PETITE APOCALYPSE was quite a disappointment for me. I am an avid fan of this decade's most overworked political source of scripts: the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. As a lifetime student of political science, I am rarely bored even by films critics pan and deem unwatchable for mainstream audiences. Nevertheless, not even the Costa-Gavras pedigree of the film could sustain my interest in this total yawner of packaged cliches. I think Costa-Gavras' attempt at somehow making these cliches "cerebral" rendered the filming even less entertaining. Even tacky melodramas about Poles, East Germans, Russians, etc. portray this post-1989 "apocalypse" in a far more entertaining and educational way. This is, sadly, a work devoid of novelty, and full of banality. Don't be swayed by the famous director's name: skip this pretentious bore.