Review #1004: Earth (1930)

Title: Earth
Year: 1930
Director: Alexsander Dovzhenko
Country: USSR
Language: N/A

Alexsander Dovzhenko's Earth has been hailed as a masterpiece of silent cinema since long before I was born. Dovzhenko, cinema’s “poet of the Ukraine,” made this film in response to another film, Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein’s The Old and the New. Like F.W Murnau's City Girl, this picture inspired many others after it, most notably Terrence Malick's deeply poet and remarkably lyrical Days of Heaven.  

In the peaceful countryside, Vassily (Semyon Svashenko) opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

One main problem people have with Earth is that it can be viewed as communist propaganda. At the same time that Dovzhenko was making his film, Stalin’s 1929 collectivization policy, which would lead to the death of millions of citizens, had just begun. He did not protest Stalin's grip on the Russian film industry, yet Soviet authorities were still fairly suspicious of his work. Some felt it was "counter-revolutionary" and were opposed to the realistic onscreen images, as well as its ambiguous political message on such a controversial topic at the time. 

I'm not entirely sure what Earth is trying to say about this political issue, as more than one viewing is required in order to grasp the full context of the images. I must admit that is serene, meditative and more visually breathtaking than any other silent picture I've come across. Beautiful shots of oceanic wheat fields, a vast sky, resistant farmers and budding flowers take up the screen in remarkable visual poetry. Earth is full of lyrical rhythm.

Dovzhenko's picture is striking, one of the best silent movies I have ever come across. I foresee myself watching this over a dozen times to get a good sense of what this film is trying to convey. I think this picture ought to be viewed by potential film-makers to get a good sense of the unlimited ways the camera can tell a story. Certainly makes my top 20.