Boris Byalik

Timid old woman Pelageya Nilovna observes the revolutionary activities of her son Pavel Vlasov and gradually comes to realize that his cause is a great and noble one. She involves herself in the movement and finds joy and great courage in her new life as a revolutionary.

In the focus of the film is the fate of Varvara Basova, whose painfully soulless, philistine-gray existence, devoid of ideals and moral content. Relevant today, the picture sounds like a verdict to all who are mired in vulgarity, who have exchanged life for petty pleasures, profit, empty philosophizing.

The title character, played by Dzidra Ritenberga, is the restless wife of a provincial village fisherman. Unwilling to dedicate herself to her husband, Malwa seeks out love from every man she meets. This results in a romantic triangle that is at once disarmingly simplistic and intensely dramatic. Malwa was the final directorial effort of Vladimir Braun, who died in 1957. Star Dzidra Ritenberga won a "Best Actress" award at the Venice Film Festival; co-stars Pavel Usovicenko and Anatoll Ighnaliev also earned praise for their realistic performances.

Foma Gordeyev, the son of a wealthy Volga merchant, doesn't want to continue his father's work. The mind is sickened by the dirt and injustice of life around him. Foma is seeking solace in a drunken rampage and wild antics. After many years of desolation, he is half-ill at the opening of a night shelter built with his father’s money.