8611
A place for Aryan (European) Folkish Pagans
The overall reception was very positive among the people, but the critics and censors were negative. Dovzhenko was really treading on thin ice and almost lost his career. He was accused of being a counterrevolutionary, pro-farmer and even a pantheist or some nature worshiper.
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Speaking of communist ideas, the film was heavily censored and some scenes were cut and restored only years later such as the tractor pissing scene.
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He tells Opanas not to grief and that:
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Farmer’s son Choma who killed Vassily goes mad with guilt and confesses to the crowd, but they ignore him which makes him completely insane, crying and rolling on the ground.
Ultimately he is not really a villain since his feeling are understandable. His family was literally robbed of their animals and land, two things a farm can’t survive without.
Opapas then goes to the village council and asks them to bury his son in a new way with no priests and church involvement. Ironically this new is reminiscent the old Pagan burials. The burial procession begins as the open coffin with Vasisily’s body is carried through the village while men and women sing. This is the beginning of the film’s finale which combines death, birth, madness and beauty all at the same time.
Note how his father’s apple tree’s branch touches Vasily’s face as if saying goodbye to him. While the coffin is still carried a woman is giving birth hinting at the cycle of life theme yet again with new life replacing the old one. Meanwhile Vassily’s young wife is mad with grief crying for him to return. She is also stripped naked which makes the scene even more unsettling.
Grieving father is sure Choma is the murderer and confronts him about it. The lad does’t admit it, but can’t look Opanas in the eyes.
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Next scene is an important one too as it shows the new, dehumanized process of bread making by the machines, intercut with women and sheaves which represent the old way.
Corrupted by the machines the sacred ritual of human-nature interaction is turned into something automated and industrialized, bordering on surreal.
Speaking of the film’s posters this one is the most popular and here we can see how foolish communist censors were thinking that Vassily is the hero. As mentioned above he is not a villain either, but on this poster he looks intentionally ugly and inhuman depicted with a strange disproportionate body and a mug which doesn’t even look much like the actor. It’s fitting to bring this up now since this is where Vassily commits his greatest crime.
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The shot ended up so good it was even used for the alternative poster.
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The grand event brings all villager out of their homes including this great shot of an old man with his ox. They are manifestations of the old word looks from obese the hill on a machine which will replace them.
This is one of the best shots in the film. My second favorite.
Next we get a couple of good scenes like Petro on his friends grave and Opanas plowing with oxen, but I’d like to highlight this one. Another example of Dovzhenko’s cinematographic language showing the natural coexistence of humanity and Nature as well as the fact that they are equal. Three young bulls and three young men are show one after another.
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The argument escalates and Vassily almost calls his father a fool, which would be an unheard level of disrespect. This shows his views on traditions and the merit based order he considered to be unjust and obsolete.
This falling out between a son and father is a macro level representation of the national New vs Old conflict. Then Vassily’s communist friends come. One of them starts a fiery speech trying to explain to Opanas how the machines will change things for the better, but the old man doesn’t listen and even curses the rotten youth when they leave.
This character will appear later, but we can already see that he represent the communist propagandists with their tales of future utopia.
The next scene shows us a family of farmers who just received a letter of notice from the new government which declares that their livestock will be confiscated. Dovzhenko shows us how different members of the family react to this. Women are crying loudly, the men are mostly silent. Then furious father takes an axe and screams that he’d rather slaughter the horses here and now rather then giving them up to the communists. He is stopped though. This subplot will be very important later so the viewer should keep this scene in mind.
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The weakening of the old world is symbolized by grandfather Semen’s own death in the very beginning of the film, but at the same time it also symbolizes the inevitable rebirth.
On his deathbed (in the garden) the grandfather is surrounded by the entire family, including children. The latter are eating apples and Semen decided to eat one too. He then dies calmly lying among his apples, a physical manifestation of many fruits of his 75 years of hard labor.
The ultimate goal was to break the spine of the village and the old order it represented. Just like how village-dwellers were the ones resisting christianity back in the day. Communists went further than their priestly predecessors who only dared to attack Pagans and their temples in the cities where they had guaranteed support of the king’s militia hence why the villages stayed Pagan. Stalin utilized the chandala elements (the poor drunks who were all to eager to rob their successful neighbors) to realize his plans. Collectivization eventually led to Holodomor.
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Another cut scene was Vassily’s wife’s naked frenzy. It was also the first nude scene of soviet cinema.
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Communist airplane is a metaphor for high ideas the commies believed in and tried to spread among the people.
Note that Dovzhenko didn’t show the airplane implying that it doesn’t exist and only the communists speaker and the charmed crowd can see it.
And finally, the big propaganda scene. Vassily’s communist friend, the same one who tried to "convert" Opanas makes a grand speech using his friend’s burial as a chance to promote the new ideas.
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We see the priest frantically cursing the villagers crying for his god to punish them for their heathen ways. The old priest keeps crying alone in the empty church. His pleas are left unanswered.
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This bring us to the topic of the film’s stance of religion. Opanas shuns away an old priest who comes to conduct a proper ritual, he even tells him that there is no god.
The film’s anti-christian stance did please the censors since communists did go against christianity early on, though later they began promoting it.
Next scene shows Vassily happily dancing as he return home late at night proud with his work. I’ve heard foreign reviewers compare it to Gene Kelly’s performance in Singin' in the Rain (1952), but unlike the American romantic comedy this is a drama and the end is tragic. Vassily is suddenly shot in the back and collapses on the street while the culprit runs away.
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When the tractor arrives Vassily is confronted and even gets vaguely threatened by farmer’s son Choma, but he doesn’t care. He gets on top of a newly arrived tractor and destroys the old field. The ease with which the machine does it’s job is contracted with honest, yet tiring labor of Vassily’s father mowing with a scythe.
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Another alternative poster also features the same man with an ox.
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The three look grand being filmed from such angle, which once again shows the director’s respect of the common man and his work. Also note the human-animal symbiosis once again expressed by the cinematography. The oxen are enslaved under the yoke, but rather stand side to side with the man.
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Arrival
Now we see the great coming of the machine. The people are both scared and excited and it doesn’t go smoothly. The government representatives in the village receive a call from the city which asks them whether the machine arrived. Afraid of higher-up’s they lie that it did even though the tractor stooped having no water in the cooler. Next comes a scene which was originally cut having angered the censors. Having nothing better to do the men driving the tractor take turns pissing into the cooler which actually works and the machine arrives. This is just a comedic scene and the reason it got commies angry is obvious.
It’s important to understand that Vassily is neither a hero, nor a villain, but rather a victim of the new regime and the divide it brings. He just happens to have a strong sense of justice yet doesn’t not have the foresight to see what the communism will really bring (Holodomor).
As a result the entire movie has a very grim and prothetic quality to it. Dovzhenko released it in 1930 and Holodomor officially began in 1932, though many villages were already starving as soon as Stalin began the collectivization.
Next is one of the best and most important scenes in the movie. The quarrel between Vassily and his father Opanas. Vassily (as well as the rest of the village) already heard about the tragedy of the farmer family, but unlike the rest he is pleased. "Now, father, the kulaks are finished." he gleefully says and adds: "We’re getting machines as well". Opanas replies with a back turned to his son: "Vasili, I think, you’re not right in the head". The latter also turns his back on the father and says: "When we have the machines, we’ll take their land away". This line makes clear that Vassily believes communist propaganda and wants to equalize everyone in the village by allowing the state to control everything.
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The old man’s death scene also establishes the split in the family. His grandson Vassily (Basil) is a newly converted communist who eagerly awaits the death of the old order and helps it. There is no direct conflict with the dying grandfather, but he laughs at his other grandfather Petro when he says that Semen deserved a medal of labor.
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As mentioned above Earth is set just before the Holodomor and shows how the new regime fooled people into their own destruction with pretty lies about the equality they will soon enjoy. Dovzhenko also highlights the conflict between the natural, traditional order and the new, industrial and ultimately destructive one.
The opening scene shows us the primordial, natural beauty and the coexistence of human and plant life. Most notably we see a woman and a sunflower in one frame. Neither is in the centre, but rather stand side by side as equals in natural symbiotic relationship. This is the films best frame since it encapsulates the reverence for nature Dovzhenko had. He was even accused of being some Nature-worshipper by some of the film’s critics, but I’ll explore the topic of religion in Earth later.
Earth is a demanding movie since it requires a familiarity with the historical events of it’s time. For this reason it may end up confusing a foreign viewer especially considering how both intentionally and unintentionally ambiguous it ended up. Hence a short historical note is in order.
After communists rose to power via starting the civil war one of the first things they established is a new anti-farming policy. Free farmers (kulaks) were demonized as hoarders of the natural wealth which was used to justify robbing them of livestock and land. This process was called collectivization.
Photo: A wagon full of grain leaves the village. The poster reads: First bread belongs to the state.