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.

Arsenal (1929) - Aleksandr Dovzhenko

The great Russian filmmaker of Ukrainian origins Dovzhenko would make his fifth feature film, the second part of his greatest contribution to the seventh art, his Trilogy of War, a year earlier started with the extraordinary Zvenigora, and that a year later, in 1930, he would find a closing with Earth. The director, who in the previous movie had already given glimpses of intervention in his work from the initial conception, that is, the elaboration of the script, directly supervising this elaboration, in this opportunity he will no longer be a mere supervisor, but will be directly the screenwriter, acquiring, of course and with all that detail implies in a film, more authority, authorship and domain, a feature in his work that would repeat on Earth and in many of his greatest works. The director continues with a very consistent film, twinned with the predecessor, the style of the director is still fully recognizable, the doses of visual beauty, poetry, may not flow with the exuberant wildness that the initiator of the triad, but does not disappear, plus now to appeal more strongly to the humanity of its characters, is the story of a Ukrainian territory, after the World War One, a soldier returns to his country, after surviving a train accident, finding his homeland celebrating an anniversary of its freedom, and remembering suffering.

                

We see Ukrainian territory, a strong explosion introduces us to a world where we see a mother of three children with tormented attitude, and without those mentioned children, devastated territory, where an officer supervises the surroundings, gropes a local woman. Bloody clashes follow one another, the Ukrainian rebel troops resist Russian attacks as much as they can, which even carry out offensives with gas of laughter. Timosh (Semyon Svashenko), a Ukrainian soldier, returns from the front, travels by train with other comrades of his, but the train has a terrible accident and crashes. Timosh nevertheless survives, arrives at his land, where there is uproar and parades celebrating the Ukrainian freedom, the centuries of struggle against the Russians that cost that freedom. But the clashes do not stop with the Russians, the soldier meets resistance, also a soldier of the Red Army (Georgi Khorkov), another German soldier (Amvrosi Buchma), there are calls to defend the homeland, everyone is required for the noble cause, an arsenal of workers is formed to resist. The villagers resist with pain, parents, children, husbands, all depart leaving their families, Timosh is a witness of everything. One by one the heroes of the resistance fall, they are being shot, and finally Timosh is also arrested, and is shot, but the bullets do not seem to hurt him.

The sound had already arrived to the world of cinema by the time this film was produced, The Jazz Singer (1928) probably sat the greatest revolution in the seventh art, the cinemas around the world was still defining its final audiovisual edges, the horror of the First World War seemed to be falling behind, but in the territory of the old Russian Empire, they remembered the Civil War. In this context, this film, so revered to Dovzhenko, was born as an order of the Russian authorities to commemorate that civil war's anniversary, and he, a descendant of Ukrainians, had to perform a singular task, shooting that tribute, but trying to be on par with Eisenstein, and his powerful socialist and revolutionary vein in his films, exalting the Russian glory, the glory of the mass, of the revolution, was a primordial ideological tool in the Russia of that time; a tessitura for the descendant of Ukrainians that, combined with his unparalleled sensibility, produces the considered major cinematographic contribution of his. His film begins in a similar way to Zvenigora, clear intentions and feelings from the first frame, that initial frame where there are no humans, absence of humans, only that barbed wire, stillness and then an explosion, unusual violence after a disturbing and deceptive stillness. Then the mother, hieratic, alone, looks down, surrounded by absence, absent children, terrible graphic irony, which is added to the strength displayed in that first image. Terrible ellipsis is appreciated later, the woman, with her eyes to the ground, with her solitude, in parallel to the other character, a peasant with the equine, she hits, whips implausibly to her children, in turn that he hits the beast of charge, terrible parallel that ellipsis. A rough, unusual harshness, even touch of surrealism, almost a delirium, of some scenes that make up general features of the film, which will not disappear, of a film that does not fit with a conventional war picture -or of exaltation of war values​- in its guidelines, in what it portrays. We will soon observe also an advance of the domain and management, the intention of the assembly, in those first sequences, there is a close-up of an officer who looks at the space outside the camera-range, then we see a peasant woman fall lifeless in a barren land, the military write "I killed a crow; time, marvelous", this is exchanged with the lifeless body of the old woman. Then observes the officer to the sky in great backlighting, a dark poetry seems to be flowing, like somber ideas, death and its threat are already swarming. From the beginning, from that first sequence, the explosion is inserted, the entrance is generated, the absurd violence, the absurdity of this violence and dementia is plotted, there is no nexus or excuse to insert it, it is not a pamphleteer or canonical political propaganda film.

Then comes one of the key sequences of the movie, an immortal sequence of this inescapable feature film, perhaps the most powerful that this huge Russian filmmaker of Ukrainian origins shot; as many masters said, a film must be reduced in its expression, it must has proclivity to be able to be simplified. Well, that sequence could simplify and be synthetic extract of the complete film. It is the prodigious sequence of the old soldier attacked with the gas of laughter, a power that overflows, one of the most famous sequences, if the picture is at the height of Battleship Potemkin (1925), this sequence would be at the height of that on the ladder of Odessa, Dovzhenko already reached top levels. We all know how things went, Eisenstein, more dogmatic, more conventional in his style of collective revolutionary consciousness, fitted in perfectly with the moment and feel of his nation, he was embraced as the standard of Russian cinema, his Odessa ladder was adopted and exalted as the most famous and referenced sequence in the history of cinema; but Dovzhenko in his style nothing had to envy, was his own sentiment, his own feeling what flowed while extolling his homeland. Yes, in Dovzhenko we have the pride, the power of the images of Eisenstein, but with his particular sensitivity, with his distinctive approach, his unique poetry, his poetic images, there are no canons, there is not so much rigidity for that to be a product of propaganda -of course, Eisenstein's film is much more than just that-, there is something else, there is one more level in those images, there is art, art that comes before everything, in his cinema, art, sensitivity seem to go beyond all other intentions, cinema is an art above all in him. The infinite absurd is embodied with heartbreaking realism in the aforementioned sequence, the gas of laughter that unleashes the soldier's laughter in the midst of the corpses, corpses morbidly crowned with ominous smiles, the enemy arrives, armed, does not shoot, hesitates, "where Is the enemy? ", he asks; is pathetic, powerful symbolism, much of the film is contained there, probably the most important and significant, sharpest and most acute sequence of the entire film. Another sequence, that of the train about to crash, is also exemplary of Ukrainian folklore, the accordion, a very representative element of the town before part of the Russian Empire, an element impossible to miss, especially in a cinema that lives from the image, like that of Dovzhenko, the image has expressiveness in him, both in this case, as well as with equines, abundantly displayed, in various situations, often in the field, also in war situations. Over the war, or to exalt what the chimerical glory that something like war can arouse, the film exalts its nation. We have a sequence that expresses that, an old man, through tears, a citizen calling, summoning his people, the people of Ukraine, teachers, workers, artists, we are talking about three hundred years of yoke, pride, the fatherland, dignity, the nation, elements that put him at the level of the other masters of the Soviet cinema, Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin. He shares with them the feeling of his cinema, of his land, but Dovzhenko always lets the images speak, there is little text, the horror and pain of war are the transmitters, he strips his vision of the greatest partisan rigidity, even proselytizing, that could have the movies of his comrades. It is interesting that there are almost no characters, in this film, with respect to Zvenigora, that element loses individuality, the invaders dehumanize in their collectivism, in the mass they represent, there are no faces; but there is more feeling, the filmmaker prints more feeling in counterbalance, some consider for that reason this film as the cusp work of the director, and of course, he would also sit school, leave influence in subsequent filmmakers, who continued his poetic audiovisual imprint.

Above what should pay tribute to the Russian Civil War, Dovzhenko prefers to pay tribute to freedom, to the human being, before the war portrays the evils it generates, the suffering of the people, human suffering, that's what he exalts; exalts it by deploring it, exalts it in his cinematic world, a world where a mother has no children, where he beats them allegorically to a man who hits a horse, where the first thing we see is something that explodes without cause. It is the history of Ukraine, and therefore of an empire, the Russian empire, of course, indivisible participation have the Bolsheviks, who come into action, workers, trade unions, Soviet history and their inescapable collective feeling, in this opportunity with some distance from Ukraine. And of course, the collective struggle is a feature of Russia, a trait of which is not exempt any artist of the time, the struggle, the resistance that represents that arsenal where the last glimmers of Ukrainian rebellion are stored, which has its core figure in Timosh, a figure that is shown at an already superhuman level, since his appearance, with his face shown in moments without the slightest disarray, rather well-dressed, contrasted with the dirty, sweaty and disheveled faces of his comrades. From his first appearances, even after the train crashed, and all his comrades died, Timosh jokes about his survival in the accident, already is slipped the nature of him  that will be confirmed in the end, he is more than a soldier, he is the resistance. And of course, he is more than a human in Dovzhenko's history, he has transcended that mere condition, he is now a complete nation, he is now a feeling, an idea, an ideal that will not die with bullets, that extraordinary ending portrays him to us as invulnerable, huge final sequence in which the feeling of a nation is expressed, of a freedom that can not be violated, which is, like Timosh, undamaged by bullets. A dark atmosphere reminds us again of the strong dose of expressionism that the filmmaker printed to his works, in the end we find a sequence that stands out, the successive executions of the members of the resistance, the shadows that flow deformed in the executions, moments of fatal dementia, awakens that echo of expressionism; however, the uncontainable expressionist delirium that was paraded in Zvenigora will leave room for something more now, to focus more on the exaltation of the Ukrainian people, without leaving aside the gloomy tonality, and for moments of madness and almost onirism, as when the equine responds to the human his hits with words. Apart from the visual difference just mentioned between the initial film of the trilogy and the one now commented, it is irrefutable to point out that they are full-lenght films totally twinned, consistent, concise their unity, they are part of a whole, if one stood out more poetry and visual strength, they share edges, at the level of sensitivity and also at a technical level, details such as montage, exaltation of their land, national pride, and this film surpasses its predecessor in appealing precisely to human sentiment. For the rest, in those powerful sequences of great montage we will appreciate the other audiovisual resources, high-angle shots, low-angle shots, shadows and warm expressionist halos. The overlays of images, and of sequences, which was part of an extraordinary sequence in Zvenigora -the aforementioned expressionist halo-, now will not appear, they do it in dribs and drabs, in a film where we will often observe hieratic interpretations, symbolizing absence, as Ukrainian women and men at certain times, they lack something, the war takes away some humanity. As mentioned, Dovzhenko once again teaches a master class of assembly, a key element in this trilogy and in the previous film, evidence that is one of the distinguishing points of his cinema, a dominance in the subject. The sequence of train crash is one of the most obvious in this sense, a cathedra of assembly, capturing despair, anguish, compressing and dilating the times, adding haste. Deepening on what was said before, that is one of the major features of the film, the ambiguity, which plagues the whole film, because as it was said, being a commission from Russian authorities, it exalts the Ukrainian dignity, but more than that, rather than taking one side, highlights the absurdity of the war. Even the soldiers of one side and another are not visually well differentiated, the clarity in intention or strict affiliation in that sense of the filmmaker is not as vigorous as the portrayal of misery and absurdity, it does not take sides as strongly as it exalts the nonsense of this, the suffering; it is more a hymn against the war, it is art over other things, it is what sets him apart from the other Russian authors, so close but at the same time so distant with the cinema of this giant. And that is what the gratuitous violence seen from the beginning collaborates with, explosions, crudeness, there is no conventional exaltation of the values ​​of the war defense, there is no military pride, is another the director's via. The trilogy continued its way, a compendium of cinema until then, of expressionism, of Russian montage, of feeling, the Russian collective identity also, an epitome of all the virtues of silent cinema in its twilight manifested in the filmmaker as a sublime farewell, because the sound was already coming with The Jazz Singer. The following year, Dovzhenko would complete his great triptych, filming Earth (1930), but for many, his artistic peak had arrived, Arsenal had seen the light, cataloged as the greatest cinematographic achievement of this audiovisual poet, a film more than necessary.