While Duvivier's beautiful sound re-make of Poil de Carotte has been screened a number of times at PFA, the 1926 silent original has eluded us until now. Shot in the mountains of central France, with a detailed village setting as background, it is the story of a sensitive, freckle-faced boy, abused by a malicious mother and an indifferent father, and driven in despair and loneliness to attempt suicide. Having had the misfortune of entering his parents' lives when their estrangement was a fait accompli, his punishment ranges from deprivation of life's simple pleasures to instances of cruelty and humiliation at the hands of his harridan mother. Against a landscape that evokes the simplicity of farm life, this portrait of greed, cruelty and false piety jars the senses. The internal state of the child who has never known joy is best evoked in a nighttime sequence, when imagined ghosts make their presence known in the rustling of branches, but for the terrified boy there is no comfort in going indoors.