Zvenigora (1928)
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 94m silent
Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Cast: Georgi Astafyev, Nikolai Nademsky, Vladimir Uralsky
Synopsis:
Through the ages, an old peasant protects the secret whereabouts of the treasure lying hidden beneath the hills and forests of his native Ukraine. He is diverted from his sacred duty of tilling the land by treasure hunters, and by war, but is finally brought back into the fold by some Party activists aboard an agitprop train.
Review:
Very avant-garde piece of film-making by theme: the idealisation of peasant toil and condemnation of bourgeois vice are there (one of the sons makes money out of conning Parisians he is a dispossessed aristo about to shoot himself on stage); but the grammar and lack of narrative causation confirm it as an experimental work, while its regionalism would doubtless have ruffled a few Party feathers (the personification of the spirit of local culture and heritage in the form of the old man suggests that the so-called treasure is nothing less than the 'salt of the earth' he represents.) An extraordinary work, which undoubtedly raises more questions than it answers, a poetic estate after which it hankers.
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 94m silent
Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Cast: Georgi Astafyev, Nikolai Nademsky, Vladimir Uralsky
Synopsis:
Through the ages, an old peasant protects the secret whereabouts of the treasure lying hidden beneath the hills and forests of his native Ukraine. He is diverted from his sacred duty of tilling the land by treasure hunters, and by war, but is finally brought back into the fold by some Party activists aboard an agitprop train.
Review:
Very avant-garde piece of film-making by theme: the idealisation of peasant toil and condemnation of bourgeois vice are there (one of the sons makes money out of conning Parisians he is a dispossessed aristo about to shoot himself on stage); but the grammar and lack of narrative causation confirm it as an experimental work, while its regionalism would doubtless have ruffled a few Party feathers (the personification of the spirit of local culture and heritage in the form of the old man suggests that the so-called treasure is nothing less than the 'salt of the earth' he represents.) An extraordinary work, which undoubtedly raises more questions than it answers, a poetic estate after which it hankers.
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 94m silent
Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Cast: Georgi Astafyev, Nikolai Nademsky, Vladimir Uralsky
Synopsis:
Through the ages, an old peasant protects the secret whereabouts of the treasure lying hidden beneath the hills and forests of his native Ukraine. He is diverted from his sacred duty of tilling the land by treasure hunters, and by war, but is finally brought back into the fold by some Party activists aboard an agitprop train.
Review:
Very avant-garde piece of film-making by theme: the idealisation of peasant toil and condemnation of bourgeois vice are there (one of the sons makes money out of conning Parisians he is a dispossessed aristo about to shoot himself on stage); but the grammar and lack of narrative causation confirm it as an experimental work, while its regionalism would doubtless have ruffled a few Party feathers (the personification of the spirit of local culture and heritage in the form of the old man suggests that the so-called treasure is nothing less than the 'salt of the earth' he represents.) An extraordinary work, which undoubtedly raises more questions than it answers, a poetic estate after which it hankers.