Touches You

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

And not just as a feature film debut, but Ivan's Childhood is a truly great film in its own right, and perhaps the most accessible of Tarkovsky's films(being his shortest and briskest). Tarkovsky is not at his absolute best here in the sense that his style was still settling and he went on to even better things(Andrei Rublev gets my vote as the greatest Soviet film ever made). This may sound like a knock but it isn't, even when Tarkovsky is not at his finest he is much better than most other directors when not at their best and Ivan's Childhood is still beautifully directed, up there with one of the better feature film directorial debuts.Tarkovsky's films are among the most visually beautiful I've ever seen and Ivan's Childhood is not an exception. The cinematography from Vadim Yusov is gorgeous and evokes chills, there is a dream-like quality to it but also a hard-edged realism. The use of landscapes is wonderfully Expressionistic, making the real-life sequences even more hard-hitting. The music score is haunting and the film is written in a thought-provoking way that wrenches the gut and breaks the heart. It isn't a Tarkovsky film without memorable scenes and images and Ivan's Childhood has those certainly, the dream sequences make the film(i.e. Ivan and his sister on the apple cart in the rain) but standing out too are the magical birch forest scene, the emotionally harrowing scene in the dark house and especially one of the most heart-breakingly powerful endings ever. What's remarkable is that while the story sounds simple, there are several characteristic Tarkovsky themes for so early on his career and when it comes to mood Ivan's Childhood works amazingly.Furthermore the story of Ivan's Childhood is incredibly touching, the childhood scenes are the epitome of innocence in a heartfelt, sometimes entertaining and charming way and in complete contrast(without feeling like two different films) the effect of the war and combat is both grotesque and poetic. The characters are interesting and vibrantly portrayed, although Masha is a little one-note for my tastes, Ivan is a compellingly real character who is easy to identify with from the get go. The acting is very good, outstanding in fact in the case of Nikolai(Kolya) Burlylaev who gives one of the best child performances I've ever seen on film. Overall, for a directorial/feature film debut Ivan's Childhood is incredible and as an overall film it's near-masterpiece quality. 9/10 Bethany Cox

This film is a story about a 12 year old boy Ivan, who happened to spend his childhood within the world of Great Patriotic War. He wasn't supposed to be a part of such a cruel occurrence as war, but having lost parents, chose to help his companions-in-arms in risky and crucial way. In my opinion, Andrei Tarkovsky has made more an art house film than just a typical soviet military drama. We don't see cruel battles, we don't see divided by war love, we don't see a war itself after all. All we see is the consequences of the war in theirs different appearances. The objective of this movie is common - to show what gore and sorrow the war is holding. But Tarkovsky shows us this gore and sorrow in an interesting, unusual way, through the eyes of little boy, through his mind and dreams also. A black-and-white sharp and high-contrast shot adds definition and dramatic atmosphere to the picture. There are a lot of really frightening and inappropriate for children scenes in the movie shown by Tarkovsky in order to achieve necessary level of horror that war provides. So I think Andrei Tarkovsky made a great and strong film showing all horror and gore of war in a different style. A am sure, you won't see any familiar to this one military drama, it's totally unique.

Last weekend, I watched 5 movies of Tarkovski based on the advice of a close and highly intellectual friend. I understood that most of the Hollywood war movies got inspirations from this movie. I recognized that actors looked at the camera directly for a couple of times but it did not disturb me much. i admired the child actor, he has given both the adult soldier role and a simple child role very perfectly. In this movie, the women actor had too much act. I mean, this is something I recognized in almost all movies of Tarkovski movies I watched so far: The selected female actors have overdone their roles in showing their emotions. I cannot say all actors were very natural and professional. I liked the movie anyway. the last scene was very touchy.

Ivan is seen as a feisty little 12-year old, placing orders and delivering ripostes to Russian Army officials with authority. It doesn't take long to conclude that the solemn looking Ivan is mature beyond his years. But this is a fallacy, Ivan is just like any other child. He yearns to be with his mother, it is obvious from the numerous poetic dream sequences that we are subjected to. The film revolves around Ivan, an orphaned boy who works as a spy for the Russian army against the Nazi troops during the WWII, and officials of the army who don't wish for him to endanger his life as a spy anymore. The film is in black and white and has some beautiful visual imagery. The cast comprises of a bunch of very good looking people. There's an interesting love triangle in the film - between two Army officials (Kholin and Ghaltsev) and a demure medical officer (Masha). War movies never engross me too much, but Ivan's Childhood has been an exception. Perhaps so because of the element of innocence brought to the film because of a child, Ivan.