Earth (1930) - Aleksandr Dovzhenko

The unforgettable audiovisual poet Dovzhenko culminated with this film what would undoubtedly be his greatest contribution to the cinematographic art, his great audiovisual achievement, the poem, the ode to his land, his nation, the spirit of his country, an extraordinary film, where his enormous mastery of audiovisual aesthetics is finally consolidated. As he had already made clear in the previous works of that trilogy, Dovzhenko's taste for controlling his work settled, and he would be the screenwriter again, he would write again what would be the road map of this filmic poem. Also, his compatriot Semyon Svashenko, the young Ukrainian actor, would be erected as the great protagonist of the glorious trilogy of the maestro, he would return to interpret the heart of the film, which becomes the story of a young, hardworking peasant, who, always working with his Ukrainian comrades, has confrontation with the well-off kulaks, landlords, he sees his tranquility endangered when great technological changes are coming, which have uneasy both workers and employers; at a given moment, the exemplary young man is liquidated, generating great sorrow throughout the locality. The great Ukrainian director ends up clinching all the virtues previously printed in his work, and the visual force, cinematographic poetry will once again be predominant in his film.

                

We appreciate lands, beautiful bucolic images flow, large fields of fruits, of sunflowers, then we see an old man (Nikolai Nademsky), he is dying, in the middle of nature, with his friend Opanas (Stepan Shkurat); he agonizes and dies. The son of the latter, the young Vasili 'Basil' Opanas (Svashenko), one of the local peasants, talks to his comrades, the rich kulaks are committing abuses, but with the arrival of tractors, it seems that their situation will improve. Great expectation is generated when finally one of the modern machineries arrives, a public presentation is made, all the people see the machine working, there is insecurity among peasants and kulaks, while everyone goes in amazement at the irreversible change that machine represents. While Vasili prepares for such a change, he dances happily, and is killed, there is pain in his sister (Yuliya Solntseva), and in his fiancee (Yelena Maksimova); Khoma 'Thomas' Whitehorse (Pyotr Masokha) is suspected. Opanas suffers, speaks to the community, wishes a burial without priests, without religion, without God for his son. The mass parades mournfully, the whole town, dozens of people march, while 'Thomas', corroded by remorse, confesses, he killed Vasili, but it hardly matters anymore, in the midst of the pain, we see again field, fruits, again to the lovers.

Dovzhenko is an artist who escapes cliché, is a true poet of cinema, perhaps the greatest poet of the silent era of the seventh art, and when those terms are conjugated, audiovisual poet, few names come to the head so unfailingly, few men of cinema have won that status so irrecusably, and it is impossible to ignore that with the film now commented, the great Ukrainian closed his Trilogy of War, the greatest artistic creation of a major artist of cinema. The film follows the trail of his predecessor sisters, from the initial moment, from the first frame we are already bombarded with the irrepressible torrent of visual lyricism, infinite fields of wheat swaying through the air, an undeniable evidence of influence in Tarkovsky's cinema, an image that we will see repeatedly in his equally poetic cinema. In addition to that the Russian himself said that Dovzhenko would be the filmmaker most comparable to him for his concern for the atmosphere in the staging; Dovzhenko and Tarkovsky, two audiovisual poets, one from the silent era, the other from the modern era. In that beginning, many minutes are devoted to one of the pillars of the triptych, nature, the countryside, the earth, as the film title, the soil that saw us being born, the one that an individual takes care of during a lifetime, an epitome sequence of intentions. Extraordinary, bucolic and natural is that first sequence, naturalism stands out, a very near close-up of a sunflower moves us immediately to the lyricism of the film, we see apples (the influence in Tarkovsky is already more than obvious), humans do not appear yet, but nature, the countryside, already shows its beauty, its bucolic beauty, it is one more character. Soon a wonderful bonding arises, the old man dies in the field, the field that he cared for all his life, "he loved the pears", someone says, like a verse recited, a formidable link is diagramed, between the human being and his environment, the field, sacred union that lasted a whole life, and that ends up being consecrated with death. It is sublime, the old man dies, but he has a death full of a tranquility as infinite as the field that he took care of with fireproofness boldness, he fades with a calm smile drawn on his face, while a companion asks him to tell him how it is over there, everything always in that great natural carpet of nature and fruits. But something breaks normality, something permeates with onirism what we see, on the deathbed, the old man leans, eats, surrounded by childhood, children; other peasants dialogue with the dead, they speak to him, they get an answer, more than ever Dovzhenko's cinema goes beyond the human condition, appeals to the metaphysical, to life after death. Those first minutes are audiovisually a greater achievement than the complete careers of many filmmakers, dream sequences, oneiric bucolic beauty, life merges with lyricism, life flows along with poetry, and nothing else matters.

As always, Dovzhenko takes everything a step further, in his film, entitled Earth, that land comes alive, the field touches, caresses Vasili's corpse, cries, like the other peasants, the earth touches, says goodbye to the hero, a subtle and infinitely exquisite way of reinforcing that link between earth and human being. The parallel drawn between humans and animals reinforces even more the almost religious connection between human being and nature, in many opportunities this happens, it equates both living beings, it is exemplary the moment when the frame is filled by three oxen, chewing grass, to immediately show three peasants, in simile position and similiar activity, making a parallel between the expectation of the arrival of technology, machines, tractors, peasants and animals, connected, seem closer than ever in their uncertainty. Always exalting that natural space, we will also find exterior frames, at times it overflows his style, the sky occupies almost the entire frame, reduces humans to almost second-line companions. The omnipresent sky sometimes occupies more than three quarters of the frame, a visual presentation certainly particular, unique on the part of the director, the sky, on more than one occasion devours the frame; now, this is shown with different moments and intentions, from exaltation to nature, to 'Thomas', deranged by the remorse of his crime, which, like that omniscient sky, seems to crush him, is another moment, another use of that resource. Dovzhenko's cinema, always relying on images, on symbols, now has on the tractor, as it once did on the train, the symbol of change, as an antipode of tranquility, of life in the countryside opposed to modernity, to the mass production, to the modernism of a tractor in the field. The tractor finally arrives, exhaling steam, it is certainly an irreversible change, exploited and exploiters, peasants and bosses are matched in the anguish and uncertainty that the epiphanic moment generates; however, that argument, that struggle, clash, that class confrontation is, again, a mere excuse for the director. This, because he differentiates from his comrades Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Vertov, in whose cinema the image, the art, are largely subordinated to rigor, to canons imposed by the authorities, which sought to exalt and inflame the collective feeling of the Russian people, the first five-year plan of Lenin had just been approved, it was a crucial moment in history, in identity, in Russian reality; in Dovzhenko, however, the proselytist canons did not curdle, he raffled those, the lyrical sensibility, the poetry, they will never be relegated in his cinema. It is well known that the film did not enjoy the favor of the Russian authorities, who defenestrated it for seeing a very weak spirit, not to celebrate and enhance the collective conscience, the pride of the defense of their compatriots, as did, mainly, the great Eisenstein, clothed and adopted by national authorities. Something normal, to be expected, because the poet Dovzhenko always gave prominence, above all, to the atmosphere in his cinema, to feeling, to poetry, to lyricism.




















So, again, the form is what transcends more than the background, that is to say the history, the ode to the land, to nature and to the people stands above the war, as in the whole trilogy of the Ukrainian master, a sing to life, to the nation, an ode to the countryside and nature. The assembly again, as in the whole triad of pictures, is a fundamental part of the film, marking the times, the patterns, the rhythm, the duration of each shot, the way in which these shots are interspersed; the country dance is exemplary in this aspect, the dance of the harvest, the peasants rhythmically work, at the rhythm of the montage, a dance in which is praised the nature, the peasant, the ennobling activity of the peasant, there is love in the representation of the filmmaker of his land and of his people. Poetry flows, in the midst of silence, hieratism, excuses, causes, a supposed exaltation and exaltation of war, conflicts, war pride, is completely relegated to the background, is a mere excuse, as always, in this poet, art is above all, Bolsheviks included. Poignant in its simplicity, it is artistic cinema, a human being dances, without more reason and obvious excuse, simply dances, expresses a feeling, like the director's own cinema, everything else surpluses, that feeling is crowned with dancing, feelings speak, a contrast will flow, Vasili finds himself blithely dancing in a moment, and then gets liquidated with treachery. But in this memorable trilogy, the characters of the filmmaker's work transcend, to death itself, are more than human beings, reach beyond death, the late grandfather returns, is still there, is timeless guardian, timeless witness of the development of history, antediluvian, valetudinarian, a central character in the director's trilogy. The old grandfather passes away, but at his side there are infants, there is life immediately after death, the cycle of life does not stop, and the great Semyon Svashenko is crowned as the great protagonist of the trilogy, it is the human synthesis of the idea, of the master's cinematic feeling, another character that during the whole triad, also transcends his condition -this insurmountably embodied in Arsenal (1929)-, in death, becomes more than a human, almost a mass, is a feeling, is the human closure of the triptych. In Dovzhenko's films are the images that speak, there is little text, he takes pleasure in showing us those images, singular are those of different couples, in fields under the bright sun, numerous hieratic couples, with suggestive hieratism, constitute a novel element in the triptych of the director. There are deliberately distorted images, a warm descent distorts them, filling many sequences with onirism, on the one hand the sequences of the numerous couples, with images of certain erotic content -not without mentioning the greatest sequence in this sense, of course-, or the sequence of Vasili dancing, added to the usual technical resources, high-angle shots, low-angle shots, that will continue to flow, on more than one occasion, to maximize moments, feelings, characters. It is also extraordinary how the director builds tension, and the aforementioned montage reaches the climax in the film's central sequence, the sequence of Vasili's funeral procession, masterly segment enhanced with contrasts, the peacefulness of the casket that parades; the tension of the people in the procession, all dignity and tears; the remorse of 'Thomas'; the gloomy old man in religious atmosphere, between altars and candles; and she, the girlfriend of unbridled wild lust. In that powerful sequence, the assembly reaches its peak, just as eroticism, sex and religion come together in the powerful sequence, the religious with Christian elements, and she naked, severe opposition, she moans and screams (in her representation, we almost hear her in the silent film) the name of his beloved, she despairs, images of her nakedness flow, and if those impact now, let's imagine its effect then. Death, the field, religion, and sex, great and burning novelty, come together, the madness of sex, she naked, her body language is everything, her contortions, her gestures, her eyes completely open, in moments where the peasants deny God, moments of laic feeling, new themes not explored before by the author in the two previous delivers brings us this feature. The rain falls, tears fall, Vasili and his coffin passing, the earth moves, yes, it moves, to have that final sequence of the lovers again, in the end return those images, the fruits, the apples, the fields, a life ends, but another begins, the cycle of life does not stop. It is the perfect closure of the trilogy, if first a historical summary was made in the extraordinarily lyric Zvenigora (1928), if later the people were appealed as resistance of something foreign and external threats in Arsenal, now appeals to the vital space, to the countryside, to the earth, and to the metaphysical, to the spirit, to the legacy that transcends humanity. In this way, the three films, obviously twinned, have differences from each other, one is in a certain way a binnacle, the next one talks about the worker, the immortal resistant Timosh that resists bullets, and here finally the physical space, nature, the earth, comes alive with incomparable power, that sequence of the corpse caressed by the tree is something unparalleled. Obviously close features, related movies, similes in the feeling that their author insuflates them, the Ukrainian poet, from the old Russian empire, the greatest artist of the Russian masters, after the collective struggle, poetry, lyricism, humanity, prevail, this film closes a trilogy that is art in its purest form, a work that should never disappear.