Tsuchi (Earth). 1939. Japan. Directed by Tomu Uchida. Screenplay by Yasutaro Yagi, Tsutomu Kitamura. With Isamu Kosugi, Akiko Kazami, Kaichi Yamamoto. In Japanese; English subtitles. 115 min.
Uchida’s most famous prewar film and a masterpiece of realism, Earth is an epic portrait of the lives of peasant farmers in northern Japan’s Tohoku region, filmed secretly over the course of a year against the Nikkatsu film studio’s wishes. (Legend has it the studio never officially approved the project until its completion.) The film juxtaposes the story of one peasant’s hardships with documentary-like shots of farmers toiling in the rice fields. For many years this early sound film survived only in a cut-and-battered German print. This version, still incomplete but considerably longer, is a 2006 restoration incorporating elements from a print discovered in Moscow’s Gosfilmofond archive in 1999.