Erdsegen (1986)

Hans Trautendorffer, a journalist from Vienna, bets his editor, Dr. von Stein, that he can endure a whole year living as a farmhand in a mountain farming village. When he returns, Stein will pay him 20,000 crowns. When Hans arrives in a Styrian village in the middle of winter, he initially has trouble finding work, as the farmers are suspicious of outsiders, especially city people. But then he finds work on the Adamshauser farm, whose farmer needs help because he is weakened by a lung disease and his eldest son, Valentin, is currently doing his military service. The farmer’s wife and his younger son, Rocherl, are initially hostile toward Hans. He finds the hard work and simple life difficult, and misses the lively bustle of the big city. But little by little, he settles in and wins the affection of Barbel, the farmer’s daughter. Dr. von Stein visits him and tries to persuade him to return to Vienna, but Hans wants to stay. Later, Stein threatens by letter to fire him if he does not return. Then a hailstorm destroys the grain harvest, and Hans promises not to abandon the family and to stay on the farm even without pay. His only contact outside the family is Guido Winter, a substitute teacher who is also interested in Barbel. When Hans learns that Barbel is pregnant by Guido, he persuades him to marry her so she can be spared the shame of giving birth out of wedlock. Guido asks the farmer for Barbel’s hand in marriage. The farmer agrees, then collapses and dies, shaken by another fit of coughing. Barbel rushes in, faints at the sight of her dead father, and suffers a miscarriage. Later, Guido finds a job in Vienna and leaves the village without Barbel: she agrees that, with no child to care for, he is no longer bound by his promise to marry her. Two of Hans’s colleagues come to the village and bring him news that he has been fired. They also tell him he no longer has to see out the year, since Stein does not consider himself bound to pay him the 20,000 crowns anyway, on formal grounds. But Hans looks at the fruits of his labor in the grain field and feels more satisfied with them than he did as a journalist. The last poor harvest has left the family in hardship: the farmer’s wife has no money for new seed. Only now does Hans admit to her that he worked as a journalist in the city and saved money, which he can use to support the family. He and Barbel take on the sowing of the winter grain, and then the two of them can marry. However, Hans has realized that, despite the beauty of country life, he was not born to be a farmer. Too often during the year he longed to return to the city. He will take Barbel with him to the city and find a new job.