Mitchourine

There is nothing as depressing as a talent that has been diminished, whether by circumstances or merely by time, and Aleksandr Dovzhenko's final completed film, Michurin (1949) is definitely an example of that. Granted, coming on the heels of the Great Patriotic War and the massive deprivations and disruptions surrounding it one is tempted to cut any production from that era quite a bit of slack but, unfortunately, Michurin doesn't deserve it.

This is a movie that has clearly been cooked up by the apparatchiks in Moscow, although the writing credit is Dovzhenko's, embodying the worst stereotypes of Soviet propaganda films that must have been painful to sit through even for the true believers. Michurin is an agronomist trying to develop fruit trees that will grow in the far reaches of the country and over the course of his 50 years he butts heads against the wall of Tsarist bureaucrats and reactionary scientists only achieving success after the revolution and Comrade Lenin giving him the tools he needed for success. Oh, and definitely Comrade Stalin helped too. A lot. No, really, couldn't have done it without him.

Utterly flat and devoid of any of the style of Arsenal or Earth it is an endless series of harangues by the increasingly crotchety and humorless Michurin, thanklessly portrayed by Grigori Belov. The inevitable parade of attractive youth, literally marching in front of patriotic banners is as cliched as one would expect and finally brings the whole thing to a blessed end albeit not before some confusing and eyebrow raising talk about eugenics. Really, really disappointing.