La Mère

This is one of the classic Soviet silent films. The story is about a family torn apart by a worker's strike. At first, the mother wants to protect her family from the troublemakers, but eventually she realizes that her son is right and the workers should strike. The plot is similar to other Soviet films of the era but does focus more on the individual than some of Eisenstein's films. The mother and son do represent the collective but they are also strong characters on their own.

The best part of the film is the editing. It is always sharp and quick. When there is action, the edits are fast and give the viewer a sense of chaos. The Soviets were masters of montage and this film is a prime example. The acting is also better than in most silent films. It is clear that the actors come from the serious stage and not Vaudeville. The cinematography is somewhat average, though, and the film feels a little flat at times. It is not perfect, but it is worth seeing for all and essential viewing for those interested in Russian film or montage.

Released right after "Battleship Potemkin", "Mother" shows a woman forced to choose between siding with her labor-organizing son or her corrupt husband. The movie makes double sure that we get to see the living conditions in Russia in 1905, but it also uses ice as a metaphor. There are a few scenes where we see ice breaking up on the ocean; it basically shows that the old order is slowly but surely coming apart. I have to admit that this is the only Vsevolod Pudovkin movie that I've ever seen, but it's certainly a good one, if only as a historical reference. A noticeable difference between Eisenstein and Pudovkin was that Eisenstein was into typage (meaning that he liked to choose any random person who looked right for the role), while Pudovkin was very fixated on whom he wanted.

The top three directors of Soviet Era during the Silent Era were Sergei Eisenstein, Alexander Dovzhenko, and Vesevolod Pudovkin. While Eisenstein is still readily available in quality home video offerings, the same could not be said of the other two until this Blu-Ray release of 3 classic Pudovkin titles. All three were previously issued on DVD by Kino back around the turn of the century and this is an upgraded version of those releases. While MOTHER and THE END OF SAINT PETERSBURG are virtually the same, STORM OVER ASIA has improved sonic and picture quality thanks to a digital restoration.

MOTHER (1926) was Pudovkin's first feature film and it follows the fate of a poor Russian woman who is married to a drunken, brutal husband and whose son hopes for a better life. The setting is 1905, the date of the aborted first Russian uprising and it pits father against son. Both work at the same factory but take different sides in the conflict. Finally the mother becomes involved in the conflict with tragic results. Pudovkin's use of faces and especially his montage editing (inspired by D. W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE) create a powerful drama with the proper pro-Soviet viewpoint.

THE END OF SAINT PETERSBURG (1927), which was made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, is more abstract in style following the example of Sergei Eisenstein in his films STRIKE and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. It focuses on two Russian peasants who go to St Petersburg in search of work only to wind up fighting in World War I before getting caught up in the Revolution. While the imagery, especially those of trench warfare is astonishing, the story is very persuasive Soviet propaganda. The trademark use of montage editing is really utilized in the film's finale.

The crown jewel of the set as far as I am concerned is STORM OVER ASIA (1928) which should have kept its original title of THE HEIR TO GENGHIS KHAN. This story of a young Mongolian nomad who is believed to be descended from Genghis Khan is far less a polemic than a character study not only of him but of the Mongolian people. The film records an authentic Buddhist ceremony that still has the power to astound and enthrall over 90 years later. We follow the main character from nomad to Soviet fighter to a potential pawn of the British Empire as a puppet king. The so-called "storm" doesn't occur until the very end.

As mentioned earlier, all three of these titles were released by Kino before going out of print and leaving only poor public domain copies available to the public until now. This new Blu-Ray edition by Flicker Alley is an upgrade of the old Kino editions with ASIA looking the best. Both MOTHER and ST PETERSBURG are still in pretty rough shape print wise but all three have good music soundtracks with Timothy Brock's ethnic flavored score for ASIA being the standout. Bonuses include a 16 page booklet, audio commentary, features on montage editing, and Pudovkin's short comedy CHESS FEVER...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Pudovkin's Mother is a strong film that refused to be bound by the limitations of its time and should remain interesting to contemporary audiences. The plot of the film is simply outstanding. While some would say it was to be expected since the film is based off of a novel by Maxim Gorky, it should be noted that good source material does not guarantee cinematic success. The film follows a mother and her revolutionist son, Pavel, as they navigate a series of difficulties resulting from her son's allegiance.

With no speech, a major challenge for silent films is the creation of multidimensional characters. Pudovkin overcomes this challenge by being able to capture the emotions of the characters. I thought the mother, was exceptionally interesting. Her struggle did not only represent that of a loving mother, but also that of a movement. Pudovkin make great use of the camera, whether it was a side profile emphasizing the pensiveness of the character or a well-timed frontal close-up, he facilitates our ride on this emotional roller-coaster.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the pacing of the film. While the pacing did vary in tempo, it was always well within its own "groove." Even in the extremely exciting conclusion, one did not get to feel the extremely fast-paced tempo of a Battleship Potemkin, which I believe speaks to the differences between the directors. On that note, it was interesting to see how Pudovkin's use of montage differed. His cuts were far more gradual and subtle when compared to Eisenstein's in Battleship which contributed to the stability of the film.

All in all, Mother was a good watch and one of the stronger films that we have seen.

Soviet filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin had produced a number of short films displaying his adapt handling from the teachings Moscow Film School instructor Lev Kuleshov on the messaging of montage editing. In 1926, Pudovkin embarked on reworking Maxim Gorky's 1906 novel, 'The Mother,' to illustrate the heroics of a mother whose son joins factory strikers in the face of brutal Tsarist troops. The October 1926 "Mother" proved to be one of cinema's most visible example of using editing techniques to fully explain the inner motivations of individual characters. Pudovkin's work departed from his film colleagues who implemented the montage to illustrate just the surface incidents leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution.

When "Mother" kicked into high gear with action, Pudovkin implemented super-quick edits to portray the shown events as chaotic. He didn't waste even a nano-second of empty framing to lengthen these scenes. "Whenever we noticed some dead place at the edge of a shot," Pudovkin related, "we would eliminate it, to have nothing useless or superfluous in the composition." Fellow Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein noticed Pudovkin's focus on the individual, how the characters changed within the fluid social revolution. "He puts real living men in the center of his work," described Eisenstein. "His films act directly through their emotional power."

The Mother, Pelageya Vlasova (Vera Baranovskaya), is Pudovkin's focal point; she loses her abusive husband to a revolutionist who accidentally shoots him. Shortly afterwards, she turns in her son, who is storing arms for the rebels, thinking he'll rethink his position and eventually side with the Tsarist government. Her plan doesn't work-he receives a harsh life sentence of hard labor. He escapes from prison by crossing an ice-flow river, reminiscent of D. W. Griffith's 1920 "Way Down East's" exciting conclusion. While all this action unfolds on the screen, Pudovkin uses his lessons from Griffith to cross-cut his montage sequences with shots of a calming nature, ice flows, and the concluding calvary charge, among other scenes.

Camara positioning was equally important to Pudovkin as his editing. To show the transformation of the Mother, he initially positions the camera high looking downwards to show an oppressed, humiliated wife in the face of her aggressive husband psychologically dragging her down. Towards the finale, the director does the opposite with the camera as she gains awareness to her self and Russia's political ramifications: he positions it low looking up towards the confident and inspired Mother who faces an onrushing horde of Tsarist calvary.

During the filming, actor Nikolai Batalove, as The Mother's son, refused to walk on the ice flows in the dramatic escape sequence. Mikhail Dollar, Pudovkin's assistant director, took the clothes from the actor and proceeded to step confidently on the flows, capturing the heart-pounding athletic feat on film. Dollar was also instrumental in creating the factory crowd frantic scene where the mounted police were overrunning the strikers. At first the 700 extras looked lethargic as they ran down the street. Dollar and Pudovkin decided to turn around the two horses they were riding and gallop just out of frame against the throng of extras. The members of the crowd didn't hesitate to run for their lives, turning into a stampede of people, just as Pudovkin had scripted.

"The Mother" is the first in what later critics labeled Pudovkin's revolutionary trilogy. In the next two years the director proceeded to produce two additional classics along the lines of this classic film debut.