Gorky 1: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky

In his moving autobiographical novel 'My Childhood', Maxim Gorky saw his childhood as 'a beehive to which various single obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life; often their honey was dirty and bitter, but every scrap of knowledge was honey all the same.'

Mark Donskoy recreated forcefully this 'beehive' full of loves, like the one between a grandmother and her grandchild, full of fighting or camaraderie among the children, but also, full of brutal violence between wife and husband or between parents and adult children, full of superstition, of alcoholism, of poverty and of revolutionary actions against the czarist State. His directing of a memorable cast (with a marvelous babushka), and in the first place of the children, is simply sublime. The street, kermis and sea scenery is brilliantly shot by his cinematographer, Pyotr Yermolov. The movie's prime message is that 'if we are ordered to do something wrong, our duty is to stand firm and be strong.' This impressive human portrait of life in the 19th century should be a reminder for all spectators of where we all come from. A real masterpiece.