In his book French Cinema: The First Wave, Richard Abel notes that this almost forgotten film is perhaps the best of the genre of peasant films of the early twenties, which rendered the way of life of the peasantry with a synthesis of realism and impressionism. L'Atre, which played successfully in the U.S. under the title Tillers of the Soil, tells of two brothers (Charles Vanel and Jacques de Féraudy) and their love for the girl (Renée Tandil, a French Mary Pickford) who was raised alongside them on their parents' farm. "Viewed today," Abel writes, "L'Atre is something of a revelation. 'Simplicity,' wrote René Clair, 'that is the...chief quality of the best parts of L'Atre.' Indeed, its lovingly composed images (often framed in oval or arched iris masks) have a meditative, lyrical power that reminds one of Tourneur as well as of F. W. Murnau's Sunrise and City Girl." However, as the drama of jealousy is played out, "the most moving moments of the film are those articulating a sense of loss or tragic confrontation.... In fact, the earth that feeds and protects the peasants also produces the blind passion that divides and destroys... Although the film attempts to celebrate the earth and its bounty...(Boudrioz) achieved that simplicity with a degree of artistry that renders it darkly ambiguous."