The story of a family and the story of a revolution are one and the same in Mother, probably Pudovkin's greatest work. Like Eisenstein in Potemkin, Pudovkin takes as his subject the abortive revolution of 1905, and the injustices of Czarist rule that led to it. But Pudovkin's relationship with his Mother is an intimate one, concentrating on individuals to emphasize the human element of revolution and, by extension, the inescapable effect of politics on human lives. The three protagonists are at once very obvious and very moving personifications of the forces in 1905 Russia: the father, a drunk and a reactionary; the mother, fragile and victimized, who comes to show an impressive strength of conviction and action; and the son, endearing and enduring. Mother will come as a revelation of film technique to those who have not seen the film. Key scenes are the prison sequence, where intercutting between guards, mother and imprisoned son magnify the simple act of passing a note into epic poetry; and the ice-floe sequence, which harks back to Griffith's Way Down East but which, in this context, answers to the flow and convergence of human bodies in the marching scenes, and to the similar movement of history itself. (JB)