Earth (1930)

Mr Bongo Films

R2 DVD

Although Alexander Dovzhenko’s Earth (more correctly translated as “Soil”) is regarded by many as in the same class as Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, it is truly a bad film. It is dreadfully overacted, its themes are glaringly obvious as propaganda, and Dovzhenko lovingly dwelled on each major point enough to drive me to distraction. Although silent films often tended to employ some overacting to emphasise a point, Dovzhenko used it so much that many of his characters became unsympathetic. Even the hero, Basil (Vasili)l, is so smug-looking that you would like to see his annoying toothy grin slip just once. The montages of the cycle of planting, growth and harvest are just as drawn–out and annoying.

The strength of the film lies in its value as a vehicle for the Communist party propaganda of the time. The small privately owned farms were being gathered into collectives, and some of the bigger landowners’ estates were being treated the same – by force if necessary. The Party felt quite rightly that the inefficiencies of the small scale production system were holding back the development of Russia. The plains of the Ukraine could support many more Russians if they could be mechanised. To this end collective farms were supplied with tractors, the symbol of progress, which caused some friction with the older members of the community. Basil’s village has just received its first tractor and the collective members celebrate. Even Basil’s father, a doubter of the benefits, is convinced when he sees how much land the tractor can plough. We cut to an extended montage of ploughing, harvest, threshing the grain, and making the bread that will feed the developing country. Mechanisation is featured prominently. This was an important propaganda theme of the times.

The local kulak, the rich landlord farmer, is not impressed but cannot stand against the inevitable progress. There is however a lot of bad feeling between Basil and the kulak family especially when Basil uses the tractor to plough through the kulak’s dividing fence and open up their fields to the collective. Their son is particularly bitter since it is his inheritance that is being taken from him. Then Basil collapses one night on the way home and is found dead the next morning. It could well have been a heart attack that took him, but Basil’s father sees it as a murder.

Now we have another Marxist theme. His father denounces religion, saying there is no God and asking the village to give his son a funeral free of the trappings of church and priests. They must find a new way to bury their dead, and sing new songs for them. Some of the older villagers once again are doubtful about this change away from their long-held beliefs but the Party turns his funeral into a major propaganda piece. The kulak’s son, mad with grief and overacting, admits he killed Basil that night when he found him collapsed in the roadway.

The local priest is incensed, too. The scenes of him raging in front of the elaborate and rich altarpieces in his church are some of the most powerful in the film. He demands that God punish the village and all its people. This point is made a number of times in Dovzhenko’s usual overstated manner, but it emphasises that religion is no friend of the people and will turn on them if slighted.

It seems he may get his asked-for revenge. In another drawn-out montage the crops are wiped out in a heavy storm. Basil’s live-in girlfriend goes mad in an orgy of overacting. Finally, though, Basil’s spirit and that of his girlfriend are reunited in a final triumphant scene of ….what exactly? I really expected waving Russian flags behind them at this point.

Although the plot is simplistic we must remember that it was designed to carry the Party’s message to the farmers in a way that the uneducated superstitious people could understand. There must have been a certain “WOW” factor when a travelling picture show came to a village and showed a film like this. The peasants would have been impressed with the new technology and this would make the message so much easier to put over. Rarely in the film are the farmers treated with any disrespect, except for a shot of one old farmer visiting the grave of his friend and waiting for him to speak from beyond the grave. Although the film shows the doubts that some peasants had about the new system, these doubters are also treated with respect and are, of course, eventually converted. Dovzhenko saved his hatred for the kulaks and the priests, the parasites of the heroic peasant class.

The film has been out of print for many years. This edition has been cleaned up and although there are some remaining artefacts they only enhance the film and show its age. Earth is an important memento of a turbulent time.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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