Quote:During this special matinee performance, DakhaBrakha will perform their original live soundtrack alongside a screening of the classic 1930 film “Earth” by Aleksandr Dovzhenko that is considered to be one of the most important films of the Soviet era. Dovzhenko is a master of composition, and the film—with its intense close-ups and the impressive expanses of the landscape—is a passionate tribute to the countryside, to nature, and to the people that work on it.

Quote:The script was inspired by Dovzhenko's life and experience of the process of collectivization in his native Ukraine. That process, which was the backdrop of the film and its production, informed its reception in the Soviet Union, which was largely negative.

Earth is commonly regarded as Dovzhenko's masterpiece and as one of the greatest films ever made. The film was voted number 10 on the prestigious Brussels 12list at the 1958 World Expo.


Plot
The film begins with a montage of wind blowing through a field of wheat and sunflowers. Next, the film transitions to show an old peasant named Semyon who dies beneath an apple tree, attended by his son Opanas and grandson Vasyl. Elsewhere, local kulaks, including Arkhyp Bilokin, denounce collectivization and declare their resistance to it. Later, at Opanas's home, Vasyl and his friends meet to discuss collectivization and argue with Opanas, who is skeptical about collectivization.

Later, Vasyl arrives with the community's first tractor to much excitement. After the men urinate in the overheated radiator, the peasants plow the land with the tractor and harvest the grain, destroying the kulaks' fences in the process. A montage sequence presents the production of breadfrom beginning to end. That night, Vasyl walks along a path on his way home while dancing a hopak, and he is killed by a dark figure. Upon discovery of Vasyl's death, Opanas looks for his son's killer and confronts Khoma, Bilokin's son. Khoma does not confess to the murder.

Vasyl's father turns away the Russian Orthodox priest who expects to lead the funeral, declaring his atheism. He asks Vasyl's friends to give his son a secular funeral and "sing new songs for a new life." The villagers do so, while Vasyl's fiancée, Natalya, mourns him and the priest curses them. At the cemetery, Khoma arrives in a frenzy to declare that he will resist collectivization and that he was the one who killed Vasyl. The villagers ignore Khoma while one of Vasyl's friends eulogizes him. The film ends with a montage showing a downpour of rain over fruit and vegetables, after which Natalya finds herself embraced in the arms of a new lover