Review #1,418: 'Ivan's Childhood' (1962)

Many films have depicted the horrors of war and the loss of innocence that comes with it, but it's no coincidence that the very best tend to be viewed through the eyes of children. The big Hollywood productions tend to shy away from this angle for the simple fact that recent wars haven't been fought on their turf, leaving it to Europe and Asia to explore how war not only devastates the childhoods of youngsters, but destroys the development of their personality. Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky, making his feature debut, was keen to explore this idea in Ivan's Childhood, and the result was a work of art that can sit alongside the likes of Come and See and Grave of the Fireflies as one of the finest films to take this approach. We open in a dream, although we don't know it yet. Young Ivan  Bondarev (Nikolay Burlyaev) is enjoying happier times with his mother as birdsong plays in the background. There's a huge noise, and the expression of Ivan's mother's face suddenly changes.

We wake, with Ivan, from the dream and into the stark reality of life on the front during World War II. Ivan stumbles out of the windmill attic he's slept in and make his way across a battle-worn Soviet landscape, eventually reaching a swamp. Dodging enemy fire, the child makes it all the way across in near darkness, making contact with a small Russian platoon commanded by the young Lieutenant Galtsev (Evgeniy Zharikov). The brash and short-tempered Ivan insists that Galtsev contact headquarters to announce his arrival, while the inexperienced leader eyes the battered young soldier before him with curiosity. Eventually making the call, Galtsev is told by Lieutenant-Colonel Gryaznov (Nikolay Grinko) to give the boy a pen and paper so he can make his report on the positions of German soldiers, as well as giving Ivan a much-needed bath and hot meal. Having grown fond of Ivan, Gryaznov and his fellow soldiers aim to move him to military school, where he'll be safe from the fighting. But Ivan, after watching his family murdered before him, burns with the desire for revenge, revealing that if he is sent away he will only escape and join the local partisans.

Like all of Tarkovsky's work, there isn't really a definitive plot driving Ivan's Childhood. Instead, Tarkovsky uses the characters and setting as a means to explore deeper themes, like war, fear, rage, loss and, of course, childhood. The film flicks between dreams and reality, often leaving the viewer unaware of which state they're in, as Ivan is spurred forward by the traumatic events he has endured. He is cynical and battle-hardened like the men around him, but he is still a boy, leaping into the arms of an officer and friend like a son greeting his returning father. As Ivan, Burlyaev is tasked with playing a character torn in half, often having to switch between the two sides of his personality in the very same scene. He pulls it off miraculously, cementing his place as one of the most powerful child performances of all time. Burlyaev is able to retain a youthful demeanour while possessing the look of someone much older and wiser, the most difficult feat faced by any young performer looking to play a child forced to grow up too fast by the adult world around him. At the end, Tarkovsky leaves us haunted by images of endless death and pointless savagery, making Ivan's Childhood one of the most devastating anti-war pictures ever made.


Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Nikolay Grinko
Country: Soviet Union

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie