Synopsis
My Apprenticeship (1939) is the middle film of Mark Donskoy's Gorky trilogy, and you can watch online on iFILM. A teenage Alexei leaves his grandfather's house to earn his own bread out among strangers.
Work drags the boy from one household to the next: errand boy for a draughtsman uncle, dishwasher on a Volga steamer, apprentice in an icon-painting workshop. He is gentle and cannot stomach the cruelty around him, so he keeps standing up for what is fair — and keeps ending up with nowhere to sleep. What carries him through is the books he reads in secret and the handful of people who treat him as a person.
Adapted from the second novel of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy, set between My Childhood and My Universities. Alexei Lyarsky plays the future writer; Varvara Massalitinova's grandmother long ago became a touchstone of Russian screen acting. Donskoy shows the underside of old Russia without flinching, yet with real warmth for his characters. A film for anyone drawn to the Russian classics. Watch My Apprenticeship (1939) online on iFILM.
Starring
Comments 0