The curtain rises amid the gray smoke from factory chimneys and the deafening roar of the factories. Just before World War I, a young peasant who has left his homeland to blend into the crowds of St. Petersburg is just one of thousands of poor people scrambling to earn a living. Vsevolod Pudovkin’s camera records with great detachment how the individual is crushed between these massive cogs. One of the harshest and most striking examples of the Soviet Realism movement, the film weaves together the raw anger and helplessness of the era with the sounds of the street. These steps, which begin with the frantic search for work, take a completely different turn in the city’s dark streets. The winds of revolution, blowing on the brink of war, begin to stir silently but deeply at every corner.

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