Ivan’s Childhood is a call to order. It is Tarkovsky’s first film and it’s also a film that quite remarkably,
contains the blueprint for his career. Yes he would go on to produce more
ambitious features, and more enigmatic ones, but it could be argued that the emotional, tactile, and visceral imagery of his feature debut would never be surpassed. His assured command of
the physical/spiritual content and the way to connect psychological meaning
through starkly beautiful imagery is intact from the beginning. This was my
first viewing of this film and I must say I was completely floored by it. From
beginning to end it is a penetrating visual experience that pulls you in under
its spell and doesn’t let go. I am in love with this film.
Ivan’s
Childhood stars Nikolai Burlyayev as a 12 year-old Russian boy whose family has
been killed and at the beginning of the film, we find out he had joined a
partisan group and was trying to cross the front line to enter Soviet
territory. He is captured by the Soviets, and quickly becomes ensconced into
the war effort. He is jaded and rather stand-offish toward
the officers, fitting right in it seems. He wants to stay on the front lines to embark upon reconnaissance
missions, which he believes will be successful due to his small size. There is
also a subplot involving an army nurse named Masha (Valentina Malyavina), and
her burgeoning relationships with two soldiers.
Part
of the major appeal of this film lies in Tarkovsky’s method of telling the
story with dream sequences interspersed. Ivan’s dreams/memories of his mother
and other moments from his childhood prior to the war are deeply affecting and
magnificently staged and photographed, as is the entire film. Vadim Yusov's cinematography is breathtaking and the fluid camerawork that Tarkovsky’s films
would be known for is on display here. Of
particular note is the “birch forest scene” where Masha and her lover walk
amongst a forest of white birch trees. White and black contrast magnificently
in this striking sequence. Also, Ivan’s sequence in the bunker by himself is an
intense examination of shadow and light with some brilliant editing.
Furthermore, the dream sequence on the apple cart, with the “film negative”
background, ending with the horses eating apples on the beach might be the most
beautiful sequence in the film. Ivan’s
trip across enemy lines in the boat through the flooded forest is an examination of low-light compositions, barren trees, and reflections. In the
film’s chilling final act, the setpiece in Berlin
What
also strikes me about this film is Tarkovsky’s ability to convey the
altered state of mind as completely essential to the storytelling. These scenes
are not just cinematic flourishes, but the means to an end that fully conveys
the altered universe that war creates. He would examine state of mind, and
literal and imagined parallel existences later in other films, but here it’s so
elemental to the boy’s comprehension of survival that these dreams and
sequences must be filmed with a heightened state of consciousness and imagery. The boy, and we as the audience, “feel” through the images. The images are the
conveyance of emotion. The use of organic materials- trees, water etc.- give a
tactile presence to the images. You can feel them with your hands just as you
can feel the emotional connection they make to your head and heart. Russia
