Ivan’s Childhood marks the first feature from the influential Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky. As I begin my journey through Tarkovsky’s body of work, revisiting a couple films I love and discovering five that I’ve never seen, I feel I’m entering an almost spiritual journey as well. I say this because I believe Tarkovsky approaches filmmaking from a wholly spiritual perspective. His films seem to start with the assumption that his audiences will watch with that kind of attention and willingness that a meaningful prayer requires, and his first feature, Ivan’s Childhood is no different.
The story follows the life of a young childhood in WW2, Ivan, who escapes a German camp through a treacherous river where he is met by Russian soldiers who take care of him. They plan to send him to military school, but Ivan refused and insists to help fight on the front lines. We see from his experiences, that Ivan no longer acts like a child, and it is clear that he believes his childhood is in fact already over. Whew. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but from the first time we see Ivan cross the river and speak to the Russian troops, we see just by his demeanor that his childhood is far behind him. However, this is not the first time we encounter Ivan. Tarkovsky opens the film with a dream sequence of Ivan fully innocent, happy, and full of faith as we see him ascend into through the trees and begin to take literal and figurative flight. This weightless, flying Ivan becomes a far cry from the Ivan we know in present day, who is grounded in his harsh reality. His physical demeanor changes from that of an innocent boy to a numb and vengeful orphan.
Throughout the film, Tarkovsky revisits Ivan’s childhood past and shows images and details that will stick with me for a long time. Tarkovsky presents simple and beautiful mechanisms for communicating Ivan’s pain in many different ways. A particularly impactful scene uses the sound design of water and a magnificent juxtaposition of images inside the bottom of a well to show us just how far away Ivan is from his happier past.
All in all, Ivan’s Childhood is an extremely compelling film. It’s paced well and moves at a tremendous speed, but it is also almost nothing other than a collection of soft, spiritual moments. Moments that transcend our everyday world but that we all know so well. Moments that define the work of Tarkovsky. Moments that make watching movies so worth it.