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
Erde (Germany) [de]
Jorden (Finland: Swedish title) [sv]
La terre (France) [fr]
La tierra (Spain) [es]
Maa (Finland) [fi]
Terra (Brazil) [pt]
Zemlja (France) (alternative transliteration) [fr]
Ziemia (Poland) [pl]

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)

Earth

Dovzhenko was a 'modernist' who drew deepest inspiration from traditional arts. His ode to the beginning of the collectivization is actually an orgy of intoxicant images of bulging clouds, waving wheat fields, ripening fruits and pelting horses.

The arrival of a tractor is hailed by the farmers. They begin to believe that an improved life has started, but Kulaks murder the young leader of the village party committee. This only encourages the village inhabitants in their resoluteness. In a sublime finale sequence, Dovzhenko unites birth, death, harvest, technical progress and solidarity, when the dead are returned to Earth that he loved so much.

No abstract summary can do justice to the extraordinary sensualism of this remarkable film. Whoever searches for the roots of Andrei Tarkovsky's cinema has to start with "Zemlya".