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Engineer Hartmann (Ivan Koval-Samborsky) is the leading developer of
explodiggers - huge excavating systems that also use explosives for brown
coal mining - and as such is pretty much the pride and joy of his
colleague, modern career woman Olga (Viola Garden). But everything gets
too much for Hartmann, and he longs for the simple country life. So one
day he quits his job and returns to his mother's (Gertrud Arnold) windmill
to live as a country boy. And even when his former boss March (Heinrich
George) sends Olga to bring him back, he refuses, having found love in his
childhood sweetheart Camilla (Ilse Stobrawa). It seems Hartmann couldn't
be happier - until he discovers that the countryside he's in is almost
literally littered with brown coal. Immediately he reports this to his
former boss, who is more than happy to reinstate him in his job, and
before long the company has started buying up the land there and covering
it with huge explodigger systems. Camilla feels lost in that industrial
world growing around her that Hartmann is a master of, but she stands by
his side and tries to arrange herself with it, not knowing that OIga's
already waiting in the wings. And being in control of the explodigger,
Hartmann more and more forgets about Camilla and doesn't even bat an eye
when he's called away to work during their engagement party. Even when his
mother, the only one who hasn't sold her land, kills herself by burning
her mill down, that doesn't slow down Hartmann - and soon the big day's
here for the whole area to be blown up for mining, and the wheels are
already in motion when Camilla, feeling neglected by Hartmann, runs out
onto the field that's about to go boom ... Now on a pure
storylevel, this film, telling a fable of tradition vs progress and nature
vs big industry in form of a love triangle is rather heavy handed and not
at all free from clichés and hyperboles - and yet on a purely cinematic
level, this film is close to perfect, a textbook example of how strong
image and imaginative editing can carry a story better than any dialogue
or title card: This is just an impressively filmed movie where every shot
seems to be perfectly composed to not only look good but also transmit the
right mood, while music (though silent, this movie had an especially
composed score) and rhytmically put together sequences drive a story. And
thus even if the film might seem dated narratively, it's a piece of
brilliance on all other levels and unfortunately as of yet still a bit of
a hidden gem.
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