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Klassieker
Regie: Alexander Dovzhenko
Land: Rusland
Jaar: 1930
Lengte: 1u25
Cast: Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva e.a.
Dialogen: *Geen*
Ondertiteling: *Geen*, Nederlands
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SYNOPSIS
Like Arsenal, Earth collects the natural world into a single, curvaceous, protective membrane. However, it politicises this membrane in a different way, characterising it as the product of collectivisation. To this end, Dovzhenko casts mechanised agriculture as the refinement of nature to a shimmering homogeneity; so many fertile seeds. In doing so, he affirms the conflation of birth and death implicit in all conceptions of collective identity, most beautifully in the opening and closing sequences, which juxtapose the death of a village elder with the burgeoning apple and sunflower harvests. These agricultural objects take Arsenal's naturalisation of the face to its logical conclusion, gazing back at the villagers who are proportionately objectified. It feels as if Dovzhenko's political agenda is a mere pretext for this metaphysical vision and, more specifically, for the access to death that it enables. From this perspective, the cinema screen is continuous with the natural membrane; or, more accurately, explicates that membrane as a tympanum, echoing back the most elusive secrets of the universe. Concomitantly, the ideal audience position is that of another village elder, who responds to his friend's death by leaning against his grave and 'listening' to it. In this way, Dovzhenko makes sound visible, most explicitly in the arrival of the tractor, which is only ostensibly heard before it is seen, and is fact just seen indirectly, as ripples across the sky, before it is apprehended as an object on the horizon. |
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COMMENTS
De in Oekraïne geboren cineast Aleksandre Dovzhenko maakte aanvankelijk komedies en licht satirische films. Met Arsenaal (1929) en vooral deze Zemlya (Aarde) brak Dovzhenko internationaal door. Zemlya was Dovzhenko's laatste stille film en schildert het leven op het land, de wisseling der seizoenen, het voorbijgaan van het oude en het ontstaan van het nieuwe. Ondanks de poëtische beelden en de pro-Sovjet inslag werd de film door de Sovjet autoriteiten bestempeld als 'contra-revolutionair'. Hierna liep Dovzhenko wel keurig in de pas. |
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PRESS
"It's all the more impressive than anything Eisenstein ever made." (Slant Magazine) |
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Links
Recensie Slant Magazine
Recensie Senses of Cinema
Bespreking door MuHKA
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about the thematical series (Dutch)
Al voor de 7de keer werkten Cinema ZED en het Departement Communicatiewetenschappen van de K.U.Leuven samen een programma filmklassiekers uit. De chronologisch samengestelde reeks – die start eind februari en loopt tot eind mei – ligt in het verlengde van de cursus Filmgeschiedenis van dit departement en belicht alle grote periodes en/of stromingen uit de filmgeschiedenis.
Other movies from these series
Films van de eerste tijden
Geheimnisse einer Seele
The Circus
Top Hat
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SCREENINGS
Previous screenigs in Cinema ZED
Wednesday 17 March 2010 - 20u00
Sunday 21 March 2010 - 22u30
Monday 22 March 2010 - 17u00
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BUY TICKETS ONLINE
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