SUBURB

In a Russian province town in the era of the Czar, an old-fashioned, sleepy life prevails in spite of the first signs of social upheaval. When World War One breaks out, everything is shaken up enormously. Old Grešin distances himself from his good German friend Robert Karlyč who packs his bags with clumsy patriotism. Blood and misery of a horrible war soon give an empty ring to the patriotic emotiveness on both sides of the front. German and Russian soldiers become allies. Among them are Nikolaj Kadkin, the son of a shoe-maker, and German soldier Müller III., who ends up in Kadkin’s province town as a prisoner of war. It is there that Müller III. falls in love with Man’ka, the daughter of old Grešin, and even is employed by Kadkin’s father, because “he might be a German, but in the end he is also a shoe maker“. The situation only becomes difficult when the son returns, crippled by a shot at the front...