Movie Review – Ivan’s Childhood

POW (Poetry of War)

It is a shame that I had to watch the film in mobile. If anyone is thinking of watching this movie in mobile, get that thought out of your mind right away. Because with Tarkovsky movies it’s all about imagery, so see, the 4:3 ratio film in just a four to five inch screen doesn’t do justice at all. Everything looks like a miniature. The wide angles, the deep focuses, the fluidic camerawork, nothing really works in a mobile. One needs to have an immersive feel to watch a movie like this and that doesn’t happen in small screen. Wish this movie had an IMAX release; it would have been lovely that way.

Being a Tarkovsky fan, I was expecting to like the film much more, like the experience of watching the film, even though one doesn’t get exactly as to what happens, the feel of a Tarkovsky’s film is immeasurable. I couldn’t say in words the joy of watching a ‘Stalker’ or ‘Solaris’. Both being perfect movies in their genre. Deeply meditative and extremely intricate in filmmaking. This too had great filmmaking techniques but didn’t work as much as the above two films.

But the reason it didn’t work is quite unclear. Because my first impression of Tarkovsky was terrible. I guess I started with ‘Mirror’ which I didn’t understand head or tails of it. However, it’s not a Tarkovsky film, which I felt guilty of not understanding. It’s actually ‘Stalker’, which got me into the grove. When I did not understand ‘Stalker’ I remember asking my friend, whether I will ever be able to understand a Tarkovsky movie. But, upon re-watching I understood how to watch a Tarkovsky movie. I guess that would require a separate lesson. It’s all about the feel, like a drug, for some it works, for some it doesn’t. Whether it’s good or bad, its up to the individual to decide.

The problem that I had with ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ is that, it was a much simpler film of Tarkovsky, of course beautiful but was not a tough watch like ‘Mirror’. If I had to re-watch ‘Mirror’, my conscience would accept that exercise to be worth of, but when I think about ‘Ivan’s Childhood’, which had a definite narrative, that’s where it gets tough to accept whether it was so intricate that it has to be watched again.

All said and done, even though ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ does not go down the memory lane as an impressive feature of Tarkovsky. There were certain imageries that were beautiful, especially the kiss, that sequence could be separately taken out and submitted to any film festivals. Such was its beauty. In addition, it is hard to not notice how pleasing to eyes the camera movements are, in a Tarkovsky film is, the way it slowly pans and the shot having a meaningful start and end.