Returning to a pre-Russian Revolution mode of narrative storytelling, this melodrama focuses on two peasant women—one the victim to an abusive father-in-law and the other emancipated. Preobrazhenskaia takes her time, repeating shots of objects in action, hands at work, and the dizzying movements that comprise the rituals of rural life. The film ends on a hopeful note, celebrating the self-sufficient new (Soviet) woman. Music by Sergei Dreznin.