Zemlya (Dovzhenko, 1930) #TSPDT #134

A farmer collective forays into new grounds, by pulling together and obtaining a tractor - much to the disapproval of the older generation.

The construction of the film strikes me as odd. The murder scene is outright bizarre and felt like a very anti-climactic point. The tractor scene was quite funny and gained a lot of tension from the simple and even unseen fact that the vehicle brakes down in sight of its goal. The solution to their problem was as simple, as it was funny - and depicted in a way that would have never been possible in eg. the American film market - although I've just read that it didn't get past Soviet censors too.

The photography is gloriously breathtaking and many of the pictures still remain in my mind very vividly. Not only the landscape shots, but also the quality of the faces. This is definitively worth intense study. Especially the father's piercing eyes are easily recalled - a certain brutal honesty gets transported through them with everything the character does.

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