Vlasov is a pipefitter at a factory, an alcoholic, and an abusive husband and father in 1905 Russia. His long-suffering wife, Pelageya, is protected by their adult son, Pavel. Pavel hides a small cache of handguns for local revolutionary socialists under the floorboards of the family home. Vlasov — a large, hulking man — is plied with vodka by agents of the Black Hundred, a reactionary group, who plan to use him as a thug against the instigators of a planned workers' strike at the factory. During the mayhem of the failed strike, Vlasov is accidentally shot to death by a revolutionary. Pelageya is devastated and pleads with her son to cooperate with the Tsarist police and army, who are pressing his case.

"Mother" depicts the radicalization of a mother during the Russian Revolution of 1905 after her husband and son are killed. The film is based on the 1906 novel "The Mother" by Maxim Gorky. It is the first film in Pudovkin's "revolutionary trilogy." 

Pudovkin wrote in his book "Film technique and Film acting" that "In my earlier film, Mother, I tried to affect the spectators, not by the psychological performances of an actor, but by plastic synthesis through editing." Grigori Roshal praised Pudovkin for his innovative style; "Being the first to introduce the idea of creating characterizations employing montage in films, he has done in the cinema what Dickens did in novels."

It depicts the radicalization of a mother, during the Russian Revolution of 1905. 

The Soundtrack

Using Russian popular melodies, inspired by the music of the great Soviet composers (Prokofiev, Shostakovich) and also by some of the main Russian nationalists (Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky), Caspervek composed this soundtrack that was premiered in Novi Sad (Serbia) in March 2015 and that awaits a further ensemble re-release in 2022.