"The Good Earth" is based on a Pulitzer Award winning novel and deals with the lives of Chinese peasants delving into the harrowing lives they go through. In the central, we have the family of Wang (Paul Muni) who marries a kitchen slave O-Lan (Luise Rainer who won Oscars for the Best Actress) from the Great Hall. Through the harvesting from their fields, they acquire land; but a famine forces them to move to the city with their children where they find the fortune.
The story has layers and an in-depth character development (Perhaps a good adaptation of the original novel). Throughout, the film achieves a nostalgic feel and has a well balance of wittiness and sadness. Perhaps, it has been one of those rare movies which achieves a rawness in depicting the harrowing events in the history and the sufferings the people endured. Before this, I think "Grapes of Wrath" and "Schindler's List" achieved that level in film making. Whether the depiction of the great famine, or the plague of the locusts; the film leaves its impact. There is also much to applaud for the deserving performances from the leads. The only coda disappointments the film had were its length and somewhat a dragging pace at its middle. By the end, the film does leave its impact to consider it a classic.
Rating: 3 stars out of 4
The story has layers and an in-depth character development (Perhaps a good adaptation of the original novel). Throughout, the film achieves a nostalgic feel and has a well balance of wittiness and sadness. Perhaps, it has been one of those rare movies which achieves a rawness in depicting the harrowing events in the history and the sufferings the people endured. Before this, I think "Grapes of Wrath" and "Schindler's List" achieved that level in film making. Whether the depiction of the great famine, or the plague of the locusts; the film leaves its impact. There is also much to applaud for the deserving performances from the leads. The only coda disappointments the film had were its length and somewhat a dragging pace at its middle. By the end, the film does leave its impact to consider it a classic.
Rating: 3 stars out of 4