The Childhood of Maxim Gorky

After losing his father, young Alexei is handed over to his grandparents in a town on the Volga. The grandfather is hard, tight-fisted and free with his hands; the house is full of quarrels, debts and jealousy. The only person the boy holds on to is his grandmother. She tells him stories and shows him that the world is something that can be told. Mark Donskoy adapted the film from the book in which Maxim Gorky described his own life; this is the first part of the trilogy. The telling does not ask for pity for the child, and does not soften what he sees either: poverty, beatings and ignorance stand as they are. Varvara Massalitinova, who plays the grandmother, is at the centre of the film. It is one of the best-loved accounts of childhood in Soviet cinema and the best known film of Donskoy's trilogy.