Ivan's Childhood (DVD)

...film is the story of Ivan's desperate struggle to avenge the deaths of his family in the only way he can - by reconnoitring enemy positions and reporting back to the Russians. However, his superiors' morals and sympathies do not allow them to continue giving him missions due to his young age, but he manages to persuade them to let him on one last 'show', the ending (which I shan't give away!) showing in my opinion the ultimate futility of the single ...
...ruined wall, and begging for Ivan's help in his pointless search for a nail that held up a picture in the rubble of the roofless ruin that was his home. It is images like this that guide us through Ivan's loss of childhood innocence and seemingly show a disapproval or rather a cry against the pointlessness, corrupting and inuring effect of war.

Compared to his other films, this is a film that lacks the somewhat characteristic Tarkovskian ... more

Also known as: "Ivanovo Detstvo", "The Story of Ivan", "The Youngest Spy", "My Name is Ivan"
bbfc rating: PG
Running Time: 91 mins.
Price (Video): approx. £5
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Nikolai Burlaev (Ivan), Yevgheny Zharikov (Lt. Galtsev.), Valentin Zubkhov (Capt. Kholin) and Valentina Malyavina (Masha)
Cinematography: Vadim Usov
Language: Russian with English subtitles

A pretty bad childhood is in store for young Ivan - his family having been killed by the Nazis during the war on the Eastern front, he joins the Partisans/Russian Army as a scout; his small size and unthreatening appearance making him ideal to cross and recross enemy lines undetected. The title has its share of irony - no childhood is present in a way we understand. This film is the story of Ivan's desperate struggle to avenge the deaths of his family in the only way he can - by reconnoitring enemy positions and reporting back to the Russians. However, his superiors' morals and sympathies do not allow them to continue giving him missions due to his young age, but he manages to persuade them to let him on one last 'show', the ending (which I shan't give away!) showing in my opinion the ultimate futility of the single voice in a crowd - maybe a reference to Soviet collectivism?

This is Tarkovsky's debut feature, based on the novel "Ivan" by Vladimir Bogomalov, from which it is already obvious that he was destined to be one of the greats of cinema, backed up by the fact that it won three Golden Lions at the Venice Film Festival in 1962: Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Director. Although he had yet to develop his later trademark style of long shots and symbolic images, the scenes are sparse and evocative. Vignettes like an old man living in a bombed out house opening the door when he could have walked over the ruined wall, and begging for Ivan's help in his pointless search for a nail that held up a picture in the rubble of the roofless ruin that was his home. It is images like this that guide us through Ivan's loss of childhood innocence and seemingly show a disapproval or rather a cry against the pointlessness, corrupting and inuring effect of war.

Compared to his other films, this is a film that lacks the somewhat characteristic Tarkovskian impenetrability (!) and falls relatively easily into an established genre: a straightforward war story with even a romantic subplot included. This does not diminish its impact however, in fact it makes a very good introduction for anyone interested in Tarkovsky's work and who would perhaps find films like "Stalker" (my favourite film - I've written a review of it on here if anyone is a Tarkovsky fan) a little too philosophical and slow-moving.

I am reviewing the video version, so the clarity and colour are possibly not as crisp as the DVD version. Having said this, on my Artificial Eye "Stalker" DVD the age of the film and the methods used for transfer result in a small amount of what I call 'wobbling' in the shots (when if one looks carefully certain parts of the landscape are seen to move very slightly as if they were an overlay rather than part of the shot), so the DVD format is not infallible. There was a small amount of this on this film too, but I reiterate only if you look carefully. In my opinion it can only lend force to the atmosphere of deprivation and tension in the military entrenchments. There is no leaching of colours as has sometimes happened to a small extent on other Artificial Eye releases (Artificial Eye is a company that specialises in releasing foreign, art-house or obscure films on DVD and Video - most of the Russian films released in the UK by them are done so on behalf of RUSCICO, the Russian Cinema Council, which has an ongoing program to release 120 classic Russian films). None of these possible problems with the quality "affect your viewing pleasure" in any way, but I include their possibility in the interests of completeness.

The black and white filming of Vadim Usov is stunning - a man who obviously knows his medium thoroughly and 'clicks' with Tarkovsky, a director famously perfectionist - in "Stalker" he personally picked all the flowers of a certain type from a shot after seeing the first take because he felt their colour was wrong for the sense required. Tarkovsky's famous long shots and lack of belief in editing and cutting for the audience's benefit start here: the technical term escapes me, but mostly each shot takes as long as the event takes - in other words very few *cut to end of event because the viewer will get bored* sequences. Tarkovsky is confident that his target audience will appreciate his style, and if they don't he won't care because he knows exactly what he wants from each shot.

In directorial terms, the style is not nearly as individual as his later films like "Mirror" or "Solaris" show, being relatively close to the accepted Soviet style of the time, but with various idiosyncrasies like his concentration on Ivan's feelings and his portrayal of them - a brilliant performance by Nikolai Burlaev, especially for one so young. None of the crass acting by children such as in "Home Alone" (!) Nikolai Burlaev is treated like an adult by the filming style, contrasting with the soldiers' slightly embarrassed care of him as a child, which creates a link between the childhood innocence that is guaranteed to many children and Ivan's unpleasant reality. Tarkovsky used Nikolai Burlaev's multitudinous talents again in the famous bell scene of "Andrei Rublev", having been struck by his ability.

Also shown here is the beginning of Tarkovsky's cinematic obsession with water, for example during a scene in which two Russian army companions row Ivan across the river marking the front between the Russians and Germans, while a German bombardment throws up sprays of water, followed by a slog through the shallows in which the lighting and phosphorescence create an almost ethereal feeling. There are also various points where water noise is included in the soundtrack: Ivan washing, dripping roofs showing the squalid conditions, all helped by slow black and white shots.

Overall, the cinematography and vignettes evoke the bleak, harsh and depressing Soviet era life wonderfully, and the timeless terror and human element of war is felt far more than in modern more action-orientated films like "Saving Private Ryan" due to its concentration less on set-pieces and battles (there are none - the action takes place during a lull in the fighting and on the complex relationships between the soldiers, Ivan and their superiors) than exploration of human nature and humanity's methods of dealing with conflict and moral and ethical dilemmas. Like all Tarkovsky's films, this has very few weak links, and although I don't find it as rewarding as his later and rather more thought-provokingly obscure works, it still makes me shiver with its technique, clarity of thought and ultimate sense of failure, unnecessary waste and desolation whenever I watch it. Highly recommended, especially as a relatively 'gentle' introduction to Tarkovsky, in my opinion the best director of all time. 

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