Zemlya (1930)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

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:

Soviet censors made Aleksandr Dovzhenko eliminate a number of scenes from the film, including a shot of peasants urinating in a tractor radiator and a scene where a dead man's fiancée mourns him in the nude.

Movie Connections:

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

Interesting visually and a fine example of that period's propaganda

A visually experimental film (even by today's standard) and a fine example of propaganda from that period. One has to remember that at the time, collective farms in Russia were still a bold social experiment (as was propaganda as a phenomenon for that matter), and it was not at all clear that it will end in failure. So the film's authors were not necessarily insincere or somehow oppressed by "Stalinist forces" to show it in a positive light. This may seem unusual for the westerners not accustomed to hearing of communism other than as a swear word. I hope that somebody undertakes to restore this film using modern digital technique, to remove all the flicker and uneven brightness, imagine how much more beautiful it could be. I have to mention also that English translation of the inter-titles is not accurate, at some points distorting their meaning. For example, when the arriving tractor stalls, the women shout "It stopped" and not "It's here"; later the party boss says "A tractor cannot stop" translated as "the tractor can't arrive" (or something), depriving the English-speaking audience of a subtle moment of satire in the film.