When Nazi invaders destroy his Russian village and kill his family, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.
While the emotional weight of Ivan is clear from the first frames -- Tarkovsky doesn't stray from making us feel the pain of Ivan's world -- there is that sense of music the director is so intent on conveying.
It feels stylistically as fresh as if it had been made yesterday -- even to some very striking use of handheld camerawork. It's really something of a masterpiece.
Director Andrei Tarkovsky has mixed daring with poetry in making this film: he shows the Soviet hero as an individual troubled with the doubts and complexities of other humans.
[A] subdued depiction of warfare as mostly a lot of waiting around for brief explosive action... The orphan kid - who several times describes himself as 'jittery' - is a more openly shell-shocked version of all the adults around him.
It was the caveat of the profound possibilities of eastern cinema, effectively heralding the discovery of one of the most perceptive minds to ever stand behind a movie camera.
Beauty, poetry and sadness are certainly lodged in its brief dramatic span, to be seized and embraced by anybody who will give a compassionate mind to it.
The Arts Desk
May 25, 2016
The work in which the remarkable nature of [Tarkovsky's] talent first shone through.
