Los Angeles, Aug. 19, 2017 – The Los Angeles Workers Center and Hollywood Progressive co-present the Ukrainian revolutionary classic Earth (Zemlya).
Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s revolutionary masterpiece Earth is about class struggle in a rural Ukrainian village, pitting poor peasants against “kulaks” (rich landowners). Class conflict erupts after the Bolsheviks make a tractor available to the underdeveloped farmers as a harbinger of the socialist future.
Under Dovzhenko’s lyrical direction, Danylo Demutsky’s stunning cinematography captures on celluloid indelible images and scenes. The poetic pictures pairing peasants with sunflowers are simply unforgettable, expressing the oneness of the farmer with the land which the Revolution is giving those who till ownership of. Earth’s sequence where the tractor needs water and how the menfolk solve the problem is amusing and - well - earthy.