In tonight's double feature, two mothers get political.
"Mother" is an intense and sympathetic study of a working woman living in revolutionary Russia around 1905. Her husband is a drunken reactionary, and her son a political agitator belonging to the revolutionary movement.
After she unwittingly reveals the location of hidden arms to the police, she sees her son dragged off to prison after a trial.
Torn between traditional loyalties and her own sense of injustice, she decides to support the strike and joins the workers' demonstration as her son escapes from prison.
Director Vsevolod Pudovkin takes great care in his depiction of the mother. The concentration on detail within his characters is one way in which Pudovkin constructs the film's emotional impact.
"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" tells the story of a woman who answers her front door one evening to discover that her husband, Herman, had a very bad day at the factory.
The boss' son is dead, as is Herman, who commits suicide. Mother Kusters is truly confused as to why her husband would do such a thing.
Mother Kusters decides she will join any political party if it helps to clear her husband's name.
While both women are interesting, admirable and strong, they both seem to be quite naive about the powers that be.
It leads one to wonder who really triumphs in the end -- the mothers or the political institutions which they challenged.
In the end, both films transcend the ambiguity and offer entertaining but insightful examples of the power of cinematic moms.
