Ivanovo detstvo

Like most films of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, My Name is Ivan (a.k.a. Ivan's Childhood), reaches out to the spirit within us. Based on a short story titled "Ivan" by the Russian author Vladimir Bogomolov, My Name is Ivan is a bleak but deeply moving film about a 12-year old boy whose parents and sister were killed by the Germans and is now a scout (spy) for a Red Army battalion. Alternating between idyllic dreams of childhood, nightmares of revenge, and scenes of war devastation, Tarkovsky creates a uniquely personal exploration of the effects of war on the mind and spirit.

My Name is Ivan is set on the eastern front during World War II. Ivan's (Nikolai Burleyayev) size allows him to slip behind enemy lines and obtain vital strategic information about German positions for the Russians. Burleyayev, who later portrayed Boriska in the bell sequence in Andrei Rublev, gives a truly amazing performance as young Ivan. As the film opens, Ivan wakes up jarringly from a poetic dream of his mother and finds himself in the attic of an empty windmill. Dodging enemy fire, he swims across a muddy swamp to reach a Russian bunker where the ranking officer, Lieutenant Galtsev (Yevgeni Zharikov), questions his credentials.

Ivan is short-tempered and speaks to the Russian commanders with bravado unusual for someone of his age. The officers, however, take an interest in Ivan's welfare and provide him with love and protection. When they plan to send him to a military school, Ivan demands to be sent back to the front, seeking to revenge his parent's death. Unable to persuade his superiors, Ivan runs away but finds only desolation and returns to camp. Despite the officers' objections, Ivan is sent on another covert operation.

Tarkovsky shows us war but without bombs or glory or battle scenes -- only the suffering spirit of a child devastated by loss. As the film progresses, it becomes more and more an internal map of Ivan's mind. Haunted by the demons of approaching death, he seems to become emotionally inert. Tarkovsky said about the film (as quoted in amazon.com): "I attempted to analyze the condition of a person who is being affected by war. When personality is disintegrating then we have the collapse of the logical development, especially when we are dealing with the personality of a child. I always conceptualized Ivan as a destroyed personality pushed by the war from the normal axis of development."

Though an early film, Ivan presages Tarkovsky's later work with the use of hallucinatory camera work and very long takes where nothing happens for several minutes. Using dream sequences of normal life juxtaposed with mud-splattered reality, the film is suffused with an air of melancholy and longing. In a memorable dream sequence (supposedly lifted from Dovzhenko's "Earth") Ivan and his sister ride in a cart loaded with apples, in the words of Gregory Pearce, "reawakens within us the longing for the lost purity of childhood". This is one casualty of war not counted in the statistics.

Ivan's Childhood is a pretty masterful example of editing, cinematography, acting, direction, and pretty much everything else that's right about film. Unfortunately, the drama or suspense is not very gripping.

This is as simple as I can put it. Film buffs will probably love this movie. It's crafted like a work of art. The average moviegoer will probably be bored during the film.

This film kind of defies convention and rating. I thought it was well- made, I just thought it wasn't very engaging.

And not just as a feature film debut, but Ivan's Childhood is a truly great film in its own right, and perhaps the most accessible of Tarkovsky's films(being his shortest and briskest). Tarkovsky is not at his absolute best here in the sense that his style was still settling and he went on to even better things(Andrei Rublev gets my vote as the greatest Soviet film ever made). This may sound like a knock but it isn't, even when Tarkovsky is not at his finest he is much better than most other directors when not at their best and Ivan's Childhood is still beautifully directed, up there with one of the better feature film directorial debuts.

Tarkovsky's films are among the most visually beautiful I've ever seen and Ivan's Childhood is not an exception. The cinematography from Vadim Yusov is gorgeous and evokes chills, there is a dream-like quality to it but also a hard-edged realism. The use of landscapes is wonderfully Expressionistic, making the real-life sequences even more hard-hitting. The music score is haunting and the film is written in a thought-provoking way that wrenches the gut and breaks the heart. It isn't a Tarkovsky film without memorable scenes and images and Ivan's Childhood has those certainly, the dream sequences make the film(i.e. Ivan and his sister on the apple cart in the rain) but standing out too are the magical birch forest scene, the emotionally harrowing scene in the dark house and especially one of the most heart-breakingly powerful endings ever. What's remarkable is that while the story sounds simple, there are several characteristic Tarkovsky themes for so early on his career and when it comes to mood Ivan's Childhood works amazingly.

Furthermore the story of Ivan's Childhood is incredibly touching, the childhood scenes are the epitome of innocence in a heartfelt, sometimes entertaining and charming way and in complete contrast(without feeling like two different films) the effect of the war and combat is both grotesque and poetic. The characters are interesting and vibrantly portrayed, although Masha is a little one-note for my tastes, Ivan is a compellingly real character who is easy to identify with from the get go. The acting is very good, outstanding in fact in the case of Nikolai(Kolya) Burlylaev who gives one of the best child performances I've ever seen on film. Overall, for a directorial/feature film debut Ivan's Childhood is incredible and as an overall film it's near-masterpiece quality. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"Childhood of Ivan" is not only about Ivan's life but it stands as a symbol for the many Russian lives shattered by the war. This is an elliptical film, that is, it doesn't reveal everything - it suggests.

"Childhood of Ivan" requires the use of your brain and imagination, but it is in no way a difficult film. Once you accept not understanding everything right now, just relax and follow the images and sounds and you are ready for the "Childhood of Ivan".

As I said before the film uses many ellipses to show Ivan's fractured life - he plays in the fields, his mother calls him and smiles; a water well, he stares down at the water and his mother stands beside him and tells a story about the stars; we hear a gun shot, someone lying on the grass; Ivan is wading through a swamp to reach a soviet army unit.

The war is not shown at all - it is suggested. We only see the enemy soldiers once for a brief moment. And two hanged men is all there is to denounce the carnage of the war. The rest is suggested by unfinished speeches, by faces where pain is followed right after by the desire to live and be happy......

Ivan's memories: His mother, his sister and their games, the beach, the sea and the rain, his captivity - his life, a broken life. Nothing remained for him in life but to fight - to fight against the enemy that had taken everything from him.

I repeat that "Childhood of Ivan" is not a partisan film, it doesn't try to demonize the adversaries. I would call it much more an intimist film, somewhat in the vein of "Les Jeux Interdits", but Ivan's childhood was over after the horrors he had to go through; his only way to survive as a human being was to fight the horror that had crippled his life, while the children of "Les Jeux Interdits" went on with their children games in spite of the war. France, because of her fast surrender, was preserved from the butchery inflicted on the Soviet Union.

I recommend this film to everyone who wants to see a paradoxically sad, beautiful, reflexive and passionate film.

Tarkovsky's monochrome delight deals with the tragedy of youth lost in war. Its main theme is of childhood innocence lost (becoming accessible to Ivan only in dreams) however the young officers are also vastly aged by the conflict they find themselves in.

The backdrop is nature itself - woodpeckers and cuckoos emulate (or become replaced by) the sounds of machine gun fire and the hoots of the falling flares. It pervades most scenes: the seemingly endless channel of water between the opposing sides, the huge birch trees stretching out as high and as far as the eye can see while also providing bunkers for the Russian forces. But nature's power is continually challenged by the great war going on around it and is ultimately defiled and devastated (like Ivan's, and the other young officers' innocence) - turning from green grasslands to mud and ashen trees.

Reminded me of 'The Thin Red Line' in its use of the natural world war tries to ignore. The shots are honestly stunning. The leads are all fantastic. Enjoy the desolation.