Zemlya = Earth

Like Eisenstein’s ‘The General Line’, ‘Earth’ is concerned with the process of rural collectivisation and draws upon the social antagonisms that marked the process. However, rather than a concern with discontinuity that was central to his earlier films Dovzhenko suggests in Earth that social revolution can sustain an order that comes from the stability of nature. Naturalisation (the countryside at harmony with itself) is normally ideological tactic to defend the status quo. Dovzhenko’s intense lyricism, moving between static painterly compositions and choreographed sequences, makes large scale social change appear as spontaneous and inevitable as the change of seasons. Conceived when the process was still in its voluntary phase but released amidst the conflict and turmoil engendered by forced collectivisation, Dovzhenko’s reconciliation of social conflict with the natural order did not find much favour with the Stalinist authorities. Also available on 16mm and on laserdisc in a collection entitled: Classics of Early Soviet Cinema.

Credits: Director, writer, Alexander Dovzhenko ; photography, D. Demutzski ; music, V. Ovchinnikov.
Cast: Mikola Nademsky, Opana-Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yulia Solntseva.