Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Tarkovsky's feature-length debut,
is also known in English under the title My Name Is Ivan. It
recounts the story of a boy-soldier who volunteers to work as an agent for
Soviet partisans during WWII after his family has been slaughtered by Nazi
soldiers. Unlike his adult fellow-partisans, this ten-year-old boy
maintains a stoic exterior, seemingly oblivious to the brutality of
war.
At issue in this film, however, is less an anti-war polemic than
an argument against violence more broadly conceived, and against vengeance
as a method for restoring moral order. Ivan is not redeemed by his mission
of retribution; instead, he is transformed into a moribund automaton. The
film, imbued with religious symbolism by its decrepit Orthodox
artifacts！icons, crosses, a ruined church！suggests a spiritual alternative
to secular justice in muted tones typical of later Thaw culture. This
understated spiritual language is supported by explorations of Ivan's
internal world through memories and dreams, which sharply contrast with
the film's moments of harsh realism.
Based on the story Ivan by
Vladimir Bogomolov, the film makes extensive use of visual citations from
Dovzhenko's Earth and other early Soviet film texts. Tarkovsky's
provocative experimentation, given the context of Soviet restraints,
further suggests a re-engagement with the aesthetics of the Early Soviet
period in its use of crane shots, double exposure, negative film
background, diagonals, and long tracking shots, as well as its combination
of documentary footage with passages of unabashed lyricism.
Many of the
characteristic oppositional thematic repetitions of the later Tarkovsky
make their first appearances in this film: fire and dripping water; shots
of the earth and the cries of off-screen birds. His blending of
expressionist techniques with surrealism and documentary lends this film
an extraordinary emotional range and variety, marking it as one of
Tarkovsky's best films.
Awarded the Golden Lion at the 1962 Venice Film
Festival, as well as sixteen other prizes at San Francisco, Acapulco, and
elsewhere, Ivan's Childhood reached a Soviet audience of 16.7
viewers during its initial release. Although less well known in the West
than Tarkovsky's later films (Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker),
Ivan's Childhood has remained among the
favorite Soviet films of the Thaw era.
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