Earth - Aleksandr Dovzhenko 1930

I love watching movies about the Ukraine. I was fortunate enough to watch Earth with my parents and both sets of my godparents, and tape recorded their commentary to it.

Earth - Aleksandr Dovzhenko 1930 Earth was supposed to be a Russian propaganda film promoting collectivism. Instead, Aleksandr wrote a love story extolling the beauty of the Ukrainian countryside and promoting the cycle of life and death there amidst the natural beauty and plentiful bounty of nature.

You can see the basic outline that the Russians wanted. Backwards farmers resist tractors coming in to make their life better. Rich landowners are upset at upstart farmers coveting their lands. But look beyond that, to the way the people interact, to the straw-roofed houses, the dancing, the fields of wheat, the love of the land. Appreciate the beautiful way in which the film was done, capturing a series of picture-perfect scenes that would be gorgeous if framed and hung on a wall.

This is definitely a movie to savor and to appreciate the lush landscape that was pre-Stalin Ukraine. I was fortunate enough to watch Earth with my parents and both sets of my godparents, and tape recorded their commentary to it. For me, that commentary will serve far better than the default musical soundtrack that comes with the film.

Note that we were sort of surprised by the scenes of husbands' hands on their wives' breasts, but apparently Aleksandr uses this kind of "fertility" symbolism in several of his films.

The Commentators

My parents and godparents

The Commentary

Ann - You get the artistic view of the land and the wheat

Paul - Now if this was in color - it'd be a field of gold the wheat.

Steph - That's why our flag is like that - blue for the sky, yellow for the wheat.

Paul - You know - Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Europe

Ann - Sunflowers! Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine

Paul - When Hitler occupied Ukraine right away he started taking away the top of the soil. - he started taking the soil back to Germany to put on their farms. ... (various scenes of fruits) ... Ukraine had a lot of apples and pears.

Paul - The biggest mistake that the Communists made during the regime - they took the young men and the fathers to Siberia and executed them, and left all the mothers and grandmothers with the little kids. And the grandmothers are the ones who told the children what the life was like before. That's why our history lived for us.

Paul - When they were doing the digs in Kiev for the subways, they found a complete city ...

Steph - His pants are open! what's goin on?

Ann - That's the way they make 'em in those days

Steph - that's right because they can't have their crotch was open.

mom - they didn't have zippers.

kris - why?

Steph - they had like a slit and you'd go to the bathroom.

ann - they didn't have zippers

Paul - you know why the pants were so tight on the ankles? Days and days riding on the horse, and they'd stop and shake it out.

Rom - you know why? Because when they raided the villages and towns they'd shove all their stuff into their pants. That's why they had wide pants.

Paul - when we went to the Ukraine in 1973 there was a bonduras on the docks selling apples. I got rubed by a lady - a guy was playing the bandura. I got some apples from the lady, beautiful apples on top, and on the bottom ...

Paul - he didn't make a sign of the cross

Ann - this was a Communist movie, remember?

Paul - They still have the my sister has some photographs of the fields with the sunflowers. the seeds are so small, they're not big like they used to be, like she remembers when she was little ...

Paul - this was made in 1930, this must've been a propaganda film to prepare people for collective farming.

Ann - that's what we were talking about at the table, the polphis the collective farming. It was the kohos against the independent farmers

Paul - 1932 - 1933 Stalin made a big move against the collective famers. My mother said ... yeah, that's the rich farmers. My mother said they would send in these people had no concept of farmering to take over the farm. And they took all the guys who *knew* how to farm and send them off to Siberia. And another thing my mother was saying was that you could go to a store and for gold things were available in the store. trading gold for wheat, for bread what not. All the stores were run by the Jews. My brother in law remembers. ... There were no rich farmers. They all made the same income.

Len - this was a propaganda movie but he did it so well.

Paul - The city people believed this, they never lived on a farm. They thought the farmers are the ones with lots of food. My grandpa - the land he got was because he served in the Tzar's army.

Paul - you know who didn't know about the famine in Ukraine? Marika. She found out about 10 years ago that there was a famine in 1932 and 1933.

Rom - my mother's cousin

Paul - in Poland they didn't know

Rom - your mother was here in the states. The people who lived there.

Paul - they finally started learning about it 20 years ago. They didn't believe it.

(the old guy is at the burial spot of his friend)

Paul - this was a mockery of the Christian reliver, the afterlife, you see the guy is talking to the dead.

Ann - that's the old way that's passing

Rom - at your father's funeral or your mom's, the guy was in the hole talking to his wife! They had to drag him out before they put in the coffin. He said "I was talking to my wife". You'd see this in Ukraine.

Lisa - see cossaks!

Paul - those were rich landowners.

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