What the exact message is we're not sure, although apparently it has to do with happy peasants.

The film (becoming a costume drama for a few painful seconds) shifts clumsily to images of happy peasants frolicking in fields and streams, to demonstrate the sound's power.

"What manner of outlaws are these, who seek to stir up even happy peasants against their lords?"

When all is said and done, then, we think it much open to question whether the world has not lost something in the complete disappearance of the ideal of the happy peasant.

All around are paintings of happy peasants and plentiful harvests, along with a disconcerting scene of a man spying on a picnic from behind a 1940's car.

These photographs are full of proud and happy workers, happy athletes, happy sailors, happy peasants, invigorated by the unprecedented opportunity to create an ideal state.

Gone for now are books on personal, warmhearted recollections of life among the vines and happy peasants.

There are those for whom the company, throughout the Soviet era, was always an instrument of Soviet propaganda, showing only happy peasants and heroic exploits.

The lavender stucco walls are nearly covered with huge romantic paintings of happy peasants' singing, dancing and picking grapes in a countryside dotted with Roman ruins.

"No more happy peasants in pretty costumes," Mr. Keene promised.