The Spanish Earth

The Spanish Civil War remains as one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts involving a major country, and it's impossible to sum up its many nuances. You'll get one view of the conflict here with incredible footage of war and glimpses of rural Spanish life.

This, however, isn't a documentary as much as it is straight Soviet-style propaganda. The style of the film, from the poor farmers bettering themselves with a homemade concrete irrigation system to the election of soldiers to hear impassioned political pep talks from movement leaders, s straight from the Stalnist manual of Lifestyles of the Glorious Peoples. This isn't meant to Red-bait any of the participants -- they truly believed in a "free" Spain, and fascist-backed Francisco Franco's regime wasn't the answer, either -- but the reality was far different and is only now coming to light after 70 years.

The Spanish Civil War was also very much a fascist/Soviet proxy war, and the Soviet Union had a not-so-hidden hand in its direction. Look carefully at the fighting sequences, and you'll see very atypical people in different-style uniforms guiding artillery and directing troops.

As a historical insight -- despite what now appears to be a ham-fisted approach in propaganda -- the film is priceless. And many thanks for TCM and its ever-expanding programming efforts in broadcasting the film in July 2007; hopefully, we'll always have somebody unwilling to slice, dice and crop something and still call it a classic, ala AMC.

Probably more shocking at the time, this dated essay on war documents the good peasants and peoples army vs. the bad professional army and foreign troops. One of the earlier times that a camera was permitted to document the horrors of war, the production attempts to tell the moral message of the righteousness of the Republican cause -- but ultimately the film denounces war itself. Despite its noble crew, the documentary is slow-moving and suffers from what appears to be a voice-over of a silent film. A must see for those who have to see something about the Spanish Civil War or who have to hear Hemingway's voice, but this is not an evening's entertainment. The Why We Fight series done by the US Army during World War II is far superior. The horrors of war were captured for the present generation on their TV screens during the Viet Nam War.

Supported by prominent American literary figures like Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos Joris Ivens' "The Spanish Earth" is an interesting glimpse at Spain during one of its most turbulent eras. Narrated by Orson Welles (and later by Hemingway) the documentary shows rural and urban Spanish life in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. With striking scenes of the bare and wide land the film highlights people working and interacting and the trials and tragedies they had to go through all vividly showing a nation in turmoil as they try to get by in tumultuous times. Slow-going and lacking the pizazz that films of this kind should have the importance of this historical artifact nonetheless overrides whatever shortcomings the movie has. A visual time travel to one of the most momentuous and tragic periods in world history "The Spanish Earth" is priceless as it is important.

Spanish Earth, The (1937)

*** (out of 4)

Nice documentary from Joris Ivens about the struggles of the Spanish Republic who were trying to save their lives against forces led by Gen. Franco who was being backed by Nazi Germany. Ernest Hemingway narrates this documentary, which lasts just over 53-minutes. At that short of a running time you know not every aspect of this legendary battle is going to be talked about so if you're needing a history lesson then this here probably isn't going to be for you. We really don't learn too much about how this battle got started and of course there's no conclusion but THE Spanish EARTH remains rather interesting simply because of the images and the heart behind the storytelling. There's no question that the production company and director Ivens wanted to stand up against those they felt were doing evil things against human beings only wanting to put food on the table for their children. There are many striking visuals where we see people waiting in line for food, which of course runs out before everyone could be fed. We get images of the young men going off to war to fight and of course with war comes the images of many who lost their lives. The production is rather crude as the cinematography isn't all that impressive and there are many issues with the sound but this really doesn't take away from the film and in many ways it makes it even more raw. What I was most impressed with where the images that really put us in the middle of this battle and one of the most striking happens at a bread line where we see that even bread has been stamped so that the poor knows who it belongs to. Film buffs will notice that Orson Welles gets credited for "narration" but his vocals were dropped and replaced by Hemingway.

The movie makes no conventional attempt to situate viewers at the outset. Instead we're plunged immediately into a series of images loosely organized around the theme of hard Spanish earth. However, the pastoral scenes soon give way to images of fighting men. But in the absence of explanation, viewers can't be sure if the soldiers are Republican or Falange (fascist). It's only after about 15-minutes, we find out these are people supporting the republic. Maybe Ivens or Hemingway is making a subtle point by withholding information, but the absence could be confusing to contemporary viewers.

The movie itself has some compelling images; however, I doubt that most go beyond generic war imagery of that time. One does, nonetheless, get a sense of the impact on the civilian population in the areas surrounding Madrid. In no sense is the film a survey of that bloody civil war as a whole. Instead, it's a narrow slice from the loyalist republican pov. But neither is the movie simply Stalinist agitprop, (the Soviets supported the elected government; Hitler and Mussolini the Falangist rebels; while the US and England remained neutral). Rather, a strong subtextual theme appears to liken support for the republic to bringing water to the dry Spanish earth, a not unreasonable pov.

It's also worth noting the anti-fascist side quickly became a cause-célèbre among artists and intellectuals disgusted by the US and England's refusal to aid a fellow democratic government. Thus the movie has a number of illustrious names attached to it. It's likely because of these names that I expected more than the overall result delivers. Nonetheless, the brief documentary remains a snapshot worth watching, even for those unfamiliar with the historical period.