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Memorable, crazy movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Just at this very moment, that classic Jim Croce song starts playing in my head as I recall my screening of "Ivan's Childhood". Why is it that Tarkovsky, in nearly all of his films, has a wistfulness of the past, in a way that fogs his narratives so uniquely? After seeing "Mirror", I came to the conclusion that Tarkovsky is a cerebral artist, and much less of an actual filmmaker. For in that film, he used memories that nearly disjointed the entire piece, and eliminated the aspect of time and structure of narrative features. I thought of it, kind of like an Eisenstein montage of the recorded memory. So sitting down to "Ivan's Childhood", I fully expected it to be the same, as most filmmakers of his ilk don't stray from their artistic visions. What a surprise it was to know that the film displayed the best of Tarkovsky's creative vision, under the guise of what seemed to be a classic war picture. Ivan is such a wonderful character. He's a brave little boy, fighting for Russia in the midst of the worst times of WWII. The Nazi's were on the warpath, and everyone had to do their part in fighting to protect themselves from the ongoing threat of fascism. We know how hard Ivan can work to support his military, but he really doesn't want to be there. He'd rather go to sleep and dream of his mother, and the place of his childhood. We see visions of him and his mother, staring down upon a wishing well, or frolicking on a sunny beach. It's that longing sense of innocence and ignorance to the problems of the world. You might say that that's what all Europeans and Russians wished they could escape to during the atrocities of WWII. When it is revealed that his parents were taken away from him, thanks to the evils of the Nazi army, it is clear that this is war he has to fight, regardless of how badly he never wanted to be apart of it. WWII has sucked him in. There is no better understanding of this then the opening scene and long take of him emerging himself into a murky lake as he swims to his military base. The river overtakes him completely, as the main titles appear on screen. Tarkovsky is clearly trying to say something here. He's saying that there is no escape from war, and it forces you deep into the grimy depths of it. Even in the many scenes where he stays in the underground room, it seems even more apparent that he's trapped. Foreboding is the writings of German prisoners on the wall that warn of eventual death.The other characters of the film seem to be just as trapped as poor Ivan. For example, we see another Russian in the army, Captain Kholin, who romances a young Russian army nurse, during an assignment in the woods. The way he lifts her off of the ground and kisses her passionately as his legs splay over a short ditch in the ground seems like a silent cry for help. Even the most ardent of soldiers are desperate to escape this terror of a war. For just a fleeting moment, he wanted someone to fall in love with. When tensions are this high, do you blame him? Wouldn't you rather hold on to a beautiful woman, tight, instead of fighting in a world war? The ending of the picture is quite interesting, and many have analyzed its significance. Some have said that it is a flashback, but I have a different take on it. In retrospect, I thought of this final scene as Ivan making it to heaven, which consists of the happy times of his past. There is just something so touching about the final scene, that despite knowing that Ivan has been killed during war, he must have reached the place of his childhood in the end. He always found comfort in remembering the good times of his youth, and perhaps, let's say, he was sent back there to relive those days forever. The shot of the dead tree on the beach might just prove my point. The dead tree might be a symbol of passing on to the other side, in the midst of all the happiness that we see in the final scene. I genuinely feel, for certain, that Ivan went to heaven, and his memories are heaven to him. "Ivan's Childhood" is a sad story, but an excellent film by Tarkovsky, as he uses his exceptional talent of memories to convey loss and rejuvenation. There's a spirit to a Tarkovsky movie, despite having such a grim exterior. His movies are about life and death, and how we all must cope about our balancing act between the two. Sometimes, all we have is our past to help comfort us about our present.

'Ivan's Childhood' was the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature film. Tarkovsky became a filmmaker during a period in Russian history called 'Khrushchev Thaw' in the last 1950s. This was a period after Stalin's death when government control and censorship imposed on the artistic works was extensively lessened. The films that were made during Stalin's reign were mostly propaganda films which mainly focused on glorifying Communism. They also glorified war to some extent by underlining how important it is to give up everything you have including your life for the sake of your nation in a war. But during 'Khrushchev Thaw' with the easing of restrictions, new filmmakers including Tarkovsky started rising who wanted to make different films with newer approaches to storytelling. A whole series of films started being made where instead of glorifying war, filmmakers started to question the logic of fighting and these films also brutally depicted the devastating effects that war can have on the lives of the common people. 'Ivan's Childhood' is an example of a film which questioned war and had a sympathetic view of the people devastated by war.Tarkovsky is a true auteur of cinema. He had his own distinctive style of filmmaking which involved complex characters and complex narratives which defied cinematic conventions. He was probably one of the biggest proponents of subjectivity in cinema. Although 'Ivan's Childhood' does have some of the complexities which became a bigger part of his subsequent films, 'Ivan's Childhood' can actually be called one of his more accessible films.The primary theme of this film is the loss of youth and innocence due to the devastating effects of war. Ivan epitomises the common people and the youth of Russia and the whole world effectively. The first scene shows the ideal life that a child should have. We see an innocent and sweet Ivan running around tress and on the grasses, watching butterflies in bright sunlight and spending time with his mother. But this scene begins with a shot of a spider web in front of Ivan's face which gives a 3d effect to make the screen look almost broken. This signifies that while this should be his life, but it isn't. The very concept of his ideal life and childhood is broken. Then he wakes up from his dream and we see the dark and disturbing reality of his life. The grass is burnt due to the fire caused by bombs and explosives, the trees are barren and look like skeletal remains. The whole atmosphere is engulfed by dark smoke and there is shot of the sun getting covered by dark clouds as 'young' Ivan floats on a boat and tries to escape from the Germans. Without any dialogue, Tarkovsky managed to establish the theme of the whole film with the juxtaposition of these two contrasting scenes. A similar style was used by David Lynch in 'Blue Velvet' to depict the dark and disturbing underbelly beneath the ideal American dream. Tarkovsky used it to show the contrast between the ideal life and the real life during wartime. The real Ivan no longer has the innocence of youth, those traits have been replaced by a rough and abrasive exterior. He is now someone who has no hope and no aspirations. The only motive that drives him is to avenge the death of his family at the hands of the Germans. So he remains adamant about wanting to keep fighting and working as a scout in the war instead of choosing military school where the military officials want him to go as they genuinely became fond of Ivan and wanted him to leave the war and lead a normal life. There is a beautiful scene where Ivan comes across an old man whose house has been burnt down in the war and whose wife has been killed. This scene affectionately shows how war affects both the young and the old. The irony is while Ivan speaks like a mature hard man throughout the film, this old man speaks like an innocent child. He said he is looking for a nail, when Ivan finds one, he said it's not the one he is looking for. This beautiful dialogue shows how the man and everyone is looking for the 'nail' which is a metaphor for life before war, but no matter how much you try, you can never go back to it. We also from time to time go back to the dreams of Ivan where he is with his mother and his sister during happy times. This constant shift between his pre-war life and his life during war helps to intensify the disturbing nature of the stark realities of his real life.'Ivan's Childhood' really is a visual film. Visuals are used to convey a lot without any verbal exposition. However I still think that Tarkovsky was in the process of mastering his skills as a filmmaker and this is not a perfect film. There are a few rough edges. Some of the scenes during the last 30 minutes of the film didn't completely work for me. He made better and more accomplished films subsequently. There is a scene where Ivan rehearses his mission which I think could have been better. But the film ends beautifully when we go back to where the film started. We go back to the ideal life for Ivan. This can also be seen as an alternate reality where war didn't take anything away from Ivan. He is playing with other kids and his sister in the beach. He keeps running on and extends his arm trying to reach something or someone. This is a beautiful way to end a film which shows people and a country trying to find a way back from the devastation of the war, but just can't.

'Ivan's Childhood' is also known as 'My Name is Ivan' in the United States. It was the first feature film of the famed Soviet director, Andrei Tarkovsky, who took over the project from another young director after it was rejected for "poor quality." Tarkovsky based the film on a short story by Vladimir Bogomolov, a very successful writer during the Soviet era. Supposedly, Bogomolov drew upon his experiences as a soldier in World War II but according to Wikipedia, some journalists believe that he never fought in the war and all his writings constitute a hoax!Tarkovsky immediately established a big reputation when he won awards at the Venice Film Festival as well as the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1962. Even Ingmar Bergman was quoted as saying that "My discovery of Tarkovsky's first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease." Not everyone was completely effusive about 'Ivan'. The NY Times critic at the time, Bosley Crowther stated, "The one exception I take to this picture, which is based on a short story by Vladimir Bogpmolov, is that its structure is a bit too frail. Its emotional communication is too dependent on its impressionistic details."Indeed, it's the assorted palate of individual visual scenes that have drawn viewers to this film time and again. A good number stick in your mind (here are just a few): flashbacks of Ivan's mother and her subsequent demise; the dead soldiers on the other side of the river with the sign 'welcome'; Ivan being carried to bed by one of his soldier-protectors; the horses eating the apples; the soldier holding the nurse over the ravine; the graffiti of doomed partisans urging future viewers to "take revenge"; and the striking cinematography filmed on location in the marshlands near Kaniv at the Dnieper River.Despite all these great visuals, the film still doesn't work very well due to the weak script. Since the carnage of war is only suggested (which was obviously intentional on Tarkovsky's part not to show any overt clashes between Germans and Russians), he was forced to fall back on the conflict between the Soviet soldiers and their 12 year old charge, the jaded Ivan. Tarkovsky relies on the main conflict in which Ivan insists on continuing his activities as a scout as opposed to the Russian commanders, who insist that he be taken from the front lines and placed in military school. This tedious battle goes on for much too long until two soldiers, Kholin and Galtsev, who have befriended Ivan, decide to ferry him across the river and allow him safe passage into the forest, where he'll continue acting as a child soldier (Kholin and Galtsev meanwhile retrieve their two dead comrades under the tree).There's also a sub-plot that seems to go nowhere. Captain Kholin makes some aggressive moves on the Army Nurse Masha in the forest; you would figure that this might end up as some kind of sexual assault but nothing like that happens. The scene is probably there because simply focusing exclusively on the inert conflict between Ivan and the soldiers, cannot carry the entire narrative.The Ivan denouement is interesting because Tarkovsky uses archival footage from the Fall of Berlin. There are some disturbing images, particularly shots of the Goebbels' children, who were poisoned by their parents in Hitler's bunker days before Germany's official surrender. He uses this footage to work in a scene where one of Ivan's soldier friend discovers the boy's ultimate fate (executed by the Nazis, by beheading!).Ultimately, the message of a poor 12 year old orphan caught up in the horrors of war fails to have the shattering impact that most critics insist that it does. I can only surmise that many of these critics were so impressed by the dazzling virtuosity of a first time feature director's extraordinary visual competency, that any objective observations concerning plot, were lost. But there's simply not enough compelling conflict to keep this anti-war vehicle completely afloat. What's more, I understand the whole idea that Ivan's misguided thirst for revenge illustrates how war can affect an innocent child, in such a deleterious way. And of course his ultimate fate, is supposed to be quite tragic. But somehow I felt emotionally detached from Ivan probably because of the child's own detachment from reality. Tarkovsky's impressive impressionistic techniques at the same time leads to an emotional distancing. We see the dreamlike shot of Ivan's mother after she's killed but we never get to know who she is. Likewise her executioners. All we're left with is the emotionally detached Ivan and his enablers—again not a big enough canvas for compelling drama.You might be interested in the fate of the actor who played Ivan-- Nikolay Burlyaev. Actually he's done quite well for himself: Since 1991, the founder and director of the Moscow Film Festival of Slavic and Orthodox Peoples and since 1996, founder and chairman of the International Association of Cinematographers of Slavic and Orthodox Peoples. One disturbing caveat according to Wikipedia: "In March 2014 he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin on Russia's military intervention in Ukraine."

Ivan is seen as a feisty little 12-year old, placing orders and delivering ripostes to Russian Army officials with authority. It doesn't take long to conclude that the solemn looking Ivan is mature beyond his years. But this is a fallacy, Ivan is just like any other child. He yearns to be with his mother, it is obvious from the numerous poetic dream sequences that we are subjected to. The film revolves around Ivan, an orphaned boy who works as a spy for the Russian army against the Nazi troops during the WWII, and officials of the army who don't wish for him to endanger his life as a spy anymore. The film is in black and white and has some beautiful visual imagery. The cast comprises of a bunch of very good looking people. There's an interesting love triangle in the film - between two Army officials (Kholin and Ghaltsev) and a demure medical officer (Masha). War movies never engross me too much, but Ivan's Childhood has been an exception. Perhaps so because of the element of innocence brought to the film because of a child, Ivan.