Plot synopsis - The Grain Store
As a village community gathers to watch a theatre troupe perform a piece about the corruption of religion, a young man called Arsei flirts with a girl called Mokrina. Two years later, as the village gathers once more to hear the Educator lecture on the imminent policy of collective farming, the couple confess their love for one another. Arsei climbs to the top of the bell tower and asks Feodosii, Mokrina's father, for permission to marry her, but the Educator announces that the church will become a grain store. Arsei tries to remove the bell, but it falls, crashing down.
The couple register their marriage, but there is no church to solemnize it and Mokrina is ashamed. After an argument, she storms out, only to learn from an old woman that her husband has been enlisted as an activist and will soon be collecting bread for the collectivisation.
Months later, with food stores running low, the same theatre troupe returns to the village with a play that portrays peasants as greedy and unwilling. Those who resist collectivization are shot.
The following year, US journalist Walter Durante reads Gogol's description of how the poor eat and decides to visit Ukraine. At the same time, Arsei returns to the village to find Mokrina emaciated and starving.
Soon after, as Arsei and Mokrina plan their future life, the Educator arrives with news of Durante's visit and coerces the village into convincing him that there is no famine. It is announced that a film will be made of life in the village and everyone is encouraged to be cheerful with the promise of food, but when it becomes clear that they will not get anything, a riot breaks out and villagers are shot by armed guards.
As it becomes impossible to distinguish who is alive and who is dead, Mokrina and Arsei reminisce, until the arrival of the actors who try and stir the living into action. A radio bursts into a furious kopak dance and everyone, alive and dead, begins a final dance.
Time passes, and Mokrina believes that in death she has been reunited with her family, but she wakes to find she is alive and has been rescued by one of the actors. As they drive along, they sing.
