1930 - EARTH, they make you watch films like this in film school .

Alexander Dovzhenko's 1930 film on farm collectivism was criticized by the Communist controlled Soviet government for being rigidly and excessively formalist. The Commies may be attempting godless destroyers of our democratic way of life, but as it turns out they were apparently pretty decent film critics.

 

 A story of a farming community that gets a government sponsored tractor to help increase it's output. The film contains endless shots of apples growing on trees, apples glistening in the rain, apples falling out of trees laying on the ground and then there's the series of wheat growing in the field scenes and after that the series of sunflowers growing in the fields. 

 

 With it's meticulous technique in photography and editing, this was hardly going to be a film that the hard working Ukrainian farmers would go to see at their local multiplex. 

 

Oleksandr Dovzhenko aka Alexander Dovzhenko must have been aware that his highly formalist film would have little audience appeal because he included a nude scene towards the end. To little to late.

 Written by Oleksandr Dovzhenko, the running time is 76 minutes.