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152 CELLULOID
plishment and rich pictorial value. From this point of view Earth is unique.
In the Soviet cinema as we can regard it from England, Dovjenko projects as an isolated figure quite alien to the main flow of cinematography headed by Eisenstein and Pudovkin. His poetic outlook and his love of mysticism set him apart from the formalist school, with its sole interest in technical problems. The simple technique employed by Dovjenko — and it is remarkably simple when compared with the complex montage principles of Eisenstein — is merely a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is perhaps possible that Dovjenko is an indication of a new type of film mentality in Russia, a development from the new peasant classes that are in the process of formation to-day.
It would be unfair, perhaps, to compare Dovjenko's film with other pictures being shown in London about the same time, and yet we are so accustomed to indifferent films that when something worth while is seen the reaction is remarkable. If we compare Earth with such films as Scandal Sheet, Body and Soul and The Criminal Code, we will learn just how negligible the ordinary run of movies is, and how great true vision and feeling in the cinema can be. In addition to which, Earth probably cost about a quarter of the sum expended on any of these American programme pictures. To this there is the obvious reply, of course, that Earth was not made for financial reasons, whereas such a film as Body and Soul was mainly produced on account of its money-making capacity. But to the believer in real cinema, Dovjenko's film offers an