Groza on AllMovie

Thunderstorm was Russian director Vladimir Petrov's first film since 1932, and it would remain his last film until 1937; Petrov took his time making his films, and the care showed. A. K. Tarasova plays a young wife named Katherine, whose cruelly "pious" in-laws keep her in a constant state of oppression and servitude. After suffering stoically for several reels, Katherine falls in love with a handsome stranger. By rights, she should be happy, but Katherine has been so inundated by her relatives' sledgehammer religiosity that she feels she's already been condemned to Perdition. Under the circumstances, she has no alternative but a spectacular suicide. This tragic denouement was regarded by some Soviet critics as a happy ending, since it exposed the "tyranny" of organized religion.