Undescribable Perfection

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I liked this short film because of the reason that from the middle till the end, it is absolute perfection. The story is about a kid who is a music student and who befriends a Man who rides a Roller. The part worth concentrating is the developing of friendship between the two. PROS:The kid looked apt in his part. The way that he starts to take interest in the work of the man and which led to the development of their friendship is good. The story also ends properly. The introduction of some characters in the starting was also good. They helped in moving forward the film and made the base for the character of the kid.MESSAGE: "Friendship is a beautiful aspect of life."VERDICT: "A recommended watch."

Tarkovsky has said that Ivan's childhood was his first "real movie" - meaning, a movie which he put his heart and soul into, and a movie which defined to him if he got what it took to be a director or not (needless to say the answer). So I think it's justified to say that this movie actually is more of a dress rehearsal to his later works.In "Sculpting In Time" Tarkovsky presents very strong, even extravagant opinions on the use of colours-, on the structure-, on the use of music etc.- in cinema, which shows best in this picture in it's strange visual look. The strong and flashy colours make it look almost like a colouring book - it's not the most visually brilliant Tarkovsky, but you can clearly see the experimentalism, and how he was trying those theories in practise while making this, which to me, as a Tarkovsky fan, was very interesting to see.Overall, not a masterpiece - good human description (as expected), good actors, nice cinematography, but nothing too mind blowing. I think you get most out of this if you have a bit wider understanding about Tarkovsky's works, which allows you to see this as a gateway to understanding how Tarkovsky became Tarkovsky.

I am not a Tarkovsky fan and I feel rather proud that I've not spent the boring hours needed to take in his whole oeuvre. But I like this little film for itself, without reference to his later works. To me, it is full of the sounds, sights, terrors and illuminations of the days of childhood. While on some political level, the little violinist's situation may be a metaphor for the artist in Soviet society who is both persecuted and envied, to me it simply expresses the reality of childhood bullying. The child's encounters with his violin teacher, with a little girl, with a roadway worker and with his mother are all realistic and plausible. I love the realism of the situation of a fatherless child striving for male bonding and constrained by the feminine and orderly influences in his life to renounce it. And I can also see the extremely well-crafted photography, lighting and composition, the interplay of rain and sunlight and the almost ethereal primary colours of the film as the basic components of a lonely seven-year-old's day as transcended by imagination and poetry. Anyone who has spent his childhood in a moderately ancient and relatively unpolluted urban landscape, who has been singled out from his peers because of a special talent or status and who has on occasion taken refuge in daydreams can identify with this film.

Strongly recommended. Tarkovsky initial work showing multiple glimpses of his genius. This short film has great depth and detail. Personally it is was the only Tarkovsky film that I had not seen, and now that I have I rate it very highly. In retrospect to his ouvre it may be strong to use the term "masterpiece", but regardless it is so. It is also probably the most accessible for viewers not familiar with his work and could prove as a perfect introduction. I urge you to see it.