Whenever I see a movie which deals with injustice stories I feel frightened that it may happen to me. Turn of the 20-th century Austria under the Keiser was otherwise a 'modern' country by European standards, and yet such an injustice story is very credible, and it could have happened elsewhere(although not exactly in the same way in classless rural America). The story line is tragic: a land-owner who has been ruthless and evil during his lifetime, is found dead. For an unknown reason he decides to be generous in his death and leaves his property to the ten peasants who were working on it. The plot thickens. The 'peasants' are not supposed to become property owners. The fact that they do own property now causes trouble with the rest of the village farmers who are unwilling to accept the new breed of farmers, they try to burn their property and this causes a chain of events in which Lukas, the main character, is killed and the others have to flee to America. The lawlessness of the ruling class is the topic here, and it hurts to see how much power they have.
A second story line is that of another injustice, that done to Rosalind, the mother Lukas never knew, and who turns out to be the one who killed the farmer because of what he did to her when she was young. In a story resembling Charles Dikens's dramas, she was raped by the farmer and then accused of stealing from him. Her child is Lukas, who never knew his mother,and also never knew who was his father, growing up as 'the foundling' and being ridiculed by everyone in the village. The only flaw I found with this movie is that there are a few flat characters, such as the former foreman, who have no real reason for being so evil. The idea is the communist idea, of the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and the existence of the oppressing class society in old Europe. The idea of injustice by the rich and powerful is not new and can be found also in westerns. The film would have been more satisfying however if the final outcome would have been more positive, good overcoming evil in their own society. But of course, one cannot change the course of history, and indeed at that point in time the only way out of the situation would not have been fighting the system but fleeing to America.
A second story line is that of another injustice, that done to Rosalind, the mother Lukas never knew, and who turns out to be the one who killed the farmer because of what he did to her when she was young. In a story resembling Charles Dikens's dramas, she was raped by the farmer and then accused of stealing from him. Her child is Lukas, who never knew his mother,and also never knew who was his father, growing up as 'the foundling' and being ridiculed by everyone in the village. The only flaw I found with this movie is that there are a few flat characters, such as the former foreman, who have no real reason for being so evil. The idea is the communist idea, of the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and the existence of the oppressing class society in old Europe. The idea of injustice by the rich and powerful is not new and can be found also in westerns. The film would have been more satisfying however if the final outcome would have been more positive, good overcoming evil in their own society. But of course, one cannot change the course of history, and indeed at that point in time the only way out of the situation would not have been fighting the system but fleeing to America.