Zemlya (1930)

Director:

Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Writer:

Aleksandr Dovzhenko (writer)

Release Date:

17 October 1930 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

Plot Keywords:

Death | Communism | Farm | Urination Scene | Grief

Cast

Stepan Shkurat	...	Opanas (as S. Shkurat)
Semyon Svashenko	...	Vasili 'Basil' Opanas (as S. Svashenko)
Yuliya Solntseva	...	Vasili's sister (as Yu. Solntseva)
Yelena Maksimova	...	Natalya, Vasili's fiancee (as Ye. Maksimova)
Nikolai Nademsky	...	Semyon 'Simon' Opanas (as N. Nademsky)
Ivan Franko	...	Arkhip Whitehorse, Khoma's father (as I. Franko)
Pyotr Masokha	...	Khoma 'Thomas' Whitehorse (as P. Masokha)
Vladimir Mikhajlov	...	Village priest (as V. Mikhajlov)
Pavel Petrik	...	Young party-cell leader (as P. Petrik)
P. Umanets	...	Chairman of the village Farm Soviet
Ye. Bondina	...	Farm girl
Luka Lyashenko	...	Young Kulak (as L. Lyashenko)

Also Known As:

Земля (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Earth (USA)
Soil

Runtime:

75 min | USA:73 min (1991 Kino video)

Country:

Soviet Union

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (1956) | Finland:S (1972)

Company:

VUFKU

Trivia:

This film was voted one of the ten greatest films of all time by a group of 117 film historians at the 1958 Brussels World Fair.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Life as a Dream (2007) (V)

mind-bogglingly great

Now I regret all the times I've railed about how propaganda is synonymous with contempt for the audience. It is sometimes hard to know what to say about a movie when it is a 'best of all time list' warhorse, but not this time. I have never - ever - seen a movie with a more deliberate, or surer, sense of rhythm. Two sequences that are nothing but long montages of fruit are absolutely riveting. A man sits, re-evaluating his world view, and because it takes a long time to do that we fade to black THREE times over about a minute, without him moving or changing position. This glacial tempo lulls us, so that Dovzhenko can jolt us with the arrival of a speedy tractor; or a collectivo's joyous dance through the dust over several lengthy wide shots is disrupted by his abrupt murder. Then the movie climaxes with an unbelievable crescendo where at least FIVE events are montaged, in perfectly comprehensible rhetorical construction. The movie begins with a death scene whose understated acting is mind-boggling even now, forget 1930; the final shot balances all the anti-church rhetoric with an image that is absolutely redemptive and spiritual, only the point is that redemption is found in LIFE. I'm not being pompous, this movie actually functions on that level. It achieves poetry AND propaganda in a way that I've never ever experienced before. It kind of reminds me of Brian Wilson's "Smile" in its modest grandeur, so true that it's painful, but so f***ing great that you want to experience it again and again. You can get it for free at the St. Catharines Library.