Blu Review: Ivan’s Childhood (1962)
Cast: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Country: Russia | Germany
Genre: Drama | War
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
There’s certainly a sardonic tinge to the title of Andrei Tarkovsky’s first feature, Ivan’s Childhood, one that’s not dissimilar to the equally acerbic appellation of R.W. Fassbender’s The Marriage of Maria Braun. In the case of both pictures, the names, through their assumed simplicity, convey the eponymous periods housed therein as exceptions to the norm, subversions of what we assume such times – times of conjugality and juvenility – to typically be. Rather than years of felicity, ardor, and comfortable sentiment, we’re confronted instead with those of tragedy and finality, as each picture conveys its titular era as but a dearth of dreams and leisure: Maria’s marriage is never truly actualized, nor is Ivan ever permitted a childhood of innocence. The parallels mostly end there, despite the marked excellence that both pictures exude. Fassbinder was always known for his eccentrically personal visions of humanity, while conversely, Takovsky’s offerings were forged with a more calculatedly reflective and longingly spectral touch; Ivan’s Childhood stands a harbinger to the precise, empathic potency the filmmaker would later come to revolutionize, perhaps even perfect.
…Ivan’s Childhood stands a harbinger to the precise, empathic potency the filmmaker would later come to revolutionize, perhaps even perfect.
At a glance, Ivan’s Childhood bears all the high watermarks of post-war Soviet cinema, and superficially recalls the compositions of Mikhail Kalatozov’s visual masterpieces The Cranes are Flying and Letter Never Sent. Here, the frames of Vadim Yusov’s lens are of intimate realization, angular entities that draw heavily upon shadow and contrast to imbue the visuals with a dramatic, though not wholly subjective, architecture. Obvious is how imagery is of deliberate design, and, as evinced by the ubiquity of sensorial accents, how it’s meant to evoke a sense of purgatory between intangible fantasy and measurable reality. Simply, it’s surreal, only slyly so. Sequences are intermittently shot from the vantage points of various characters, with the common thread being a fixation on surroundings and relations thereto. Moreover, Tarkovsky will often spatially decompress his compositions as to freely explore the depth of frame that the cinematic medium permits, employing human and insentient subjects alike as markers to denote dimensionality throughout his landscapes. From the standpoint of aesthetic agreeability and function, the film is accomplished, though the Russian great was always better known for his exploitations of time within single takes; Ivan’s Childhood only portends his brilliance in this regard, as the filmmaker perpetrates temporal elision and elongation as a way to link his imagery to that of fantasy, of dreams.
But despite any similarities between he and his contemporaries, despite the common bents for dexterous imagery and war torn milieus, Tarkovsky’s first full-length reads as antithetical to the more famed works of his cinematic compatriots, for he forces the viewer, usually by way of guileful acerbity, to reconsider some of the more cherished virtues of the Soviet spirit: Utilitarianism (“You know who rests during wartime – useless people!”), masculine predominance (“War is a man’s business; it’s not for girls.”), and even emotional investments in combat. Lines directly applicable to such concerns are delivered with pompous intonation, the moral shortcomings of those speaking exhibited for the audience to judge – maybe even see themselves in.
As for the narrative, Ivan (Nikolay Burlyaev), an orphan of twelve or so, involves himself into the Second World War at the film’s onset, boasting about both his unbridled sense of valor and unmatched faculty for reconnaissance. But Ivan is just a boy, a boy who doesn’t grasp what’s behind the wartime airs of adults, a boy who woefully views youth as more an obstacle than a comfort. Utilized as a tool for juxtaposition, the child’s bravado provides a personage through whom Tarkovsky can censure the behaviors and prejudices of adults. Whereas Ivan can only fulfill his sole adolescent duty, embracing his relative sense of innocence, through oneiric escapism, the film’s more aged characters, we can fathom, can only achieve interpersonal – and by extension, national – peace by bearing a more empathetic slant. However this, the artist knows, is delusion – too utopic a notion to ever be actualized. Tarkovsky understands the confines of reality, and uses such limits to frame an elegiac tribute to concord and humanity.
Oftentimes Ivan’s Childhood interplays the observable and fantastical worlds that define its story, showing how our deeper yearnings ultimately mold our larger perceptions of life. Aside from the aforementioned manner in which Ivan’s dreamier visions dissolve into his physical surroundings, other principals, like the delicate Masha (Valentina Malyavina), are also representative of the emotional complexity that can be found during tumult. One scene has her performing an impromptu dance number, if you will, with the trees of a stalky birch forest, the camera evoking the vertiginous essence of not only young love but of wartime confusion as well. It’s moments like these that Ivan’s Childhood can be felt as a tonally arrhythmic piece of art, as nothing but an incongruous collective of little moments and emotions; and this, I contend, is by design. Rather than celebrate national triumphs and concede personal loss, Tarkovsky requests we attempt the inverse: He presents small, pocketed scenes of humanity as a way to prevent viewers from confusing the larger picture as the more important one. He indulges both the hellish expanses visible from the world’s surface and the concealed, healing springs coursing beneath.
Oftentimes Ivan’s Childhood interplays the observable and fantastical worlds that define its story, showing how our deeper yearnings ultimately mold our larger perceptions of life.
As noted by a dependence on the chimerical, by the film’s pervasive respect for the individual viewpoint, there’s much to be made of the many anecdotes and personal accounts averred throughout the film, and these recollections provide insight into not only the events described but also the fabulists describing them. With this in mind, it’s imperative to consider what Tarkovsky chooses to represent visually and what he instead communicates through oration and allusion. Though they’re often spoken of, the German enemy is only depicted (aside from some newsreel footage near the end) as the monstrous figures of woodcarvings, mythical avatars meant to dehumanize an entire people. It’s through such motifs that Tarkovsky eloquently braids together the verbal, visual, and thematic elements of his film, elucidating the puissance of the human mind and perhaps its most practical use: Cathartically distorting the realities we face to help us cope with the tragedies permeating the human condition.
Extras
Only the chimneys remain. Chimneys and hearths of stone surrounded by the charred remains of homes, further surrounded by scorched Earth and a mist of choky black. An occasional aperture of light pierces the necrotic environs, more a reminder of what once was than a sign of growth anew. This decaying portrait of civility is brilliantly realized on Criterion’s 1080p transfer, a presentation that showcases Tarkovsky’s visual nuance as equal only to his cognitive insistence. The monochromatic imagery feels at once alive with warmth and cold with death, as detail is adroitly rendered and each of its many shades of grey register as interdependent elements of a living whole. The deep perspective lines and vanishing points of each composition transcribe beautifully to high-definition digital, maintaining the stability and consistency one would expect while imparting the textural intimacy of its original filmic source. The world needs more restored Tarkovsky, especially when it’s of such caliber and care.
Though the great director himself is deceased, his voice can still be heard in the supplemental material of this Criterion Blu-ray, not only through his physical writings but also the implications of his colleagues. Tarkovsky had a rare gift for balancing poeticism with austerity, insight with laconicism, and his ability to see the world from a fair, symbiotic perspective is evident in the video interviews with his crew and the essays that can be found in the accompanying booklet. Of course, the somewhat meager runtime of featurettes leaves a little to be desired, but there’s still plenty to ruminate on given the existential windows the filmmaker’s works accommodate.
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