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Ivan's Childhood

Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood)

1962

Andrei Tarkovsky

Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov, Stepan Krylov ...

7.8

7,348

Drama. War The film is centered around a 12 year old Russian boy, Ivan, whose parents died at the hands of Germans invading Russia during the Second World War. In striving single-mindedly to avenge their deaths, he lives the life of a homeless orphan. Sometimes he joins partisans and at other times he is with the Russian Army, but he is always adamant to fight on the front line, and he takes advantage of his small size to get reconnaissance jobs ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Bosley Crowther The New York Times	"This moving and haunting little film (...) has an uncommon personal quality, a concentration upon the fate of the individual such as we didn't used to get in Soviet films."	POS
United Kingdom	Geoffrey Macnab The Independent	"The most lyrical war movie ever made (...) What makes the film so distinctive is that it takes a child’s eye view (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tom Huddleston Time Out	"No other director is simultaneously so precise and so otherworldly, so uncompromisingly bleak and so awake to the possibilities of joy (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Kim Newman Empire	"Tarkovsky's debut shows the promise of future marvels and has a number of stand-out, memorable moments (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Richard Brody The New Yorker	"The visual inventiveness that the director brings to the story is utterly personal and surprisingly spiritual, even transcendent."	POS
United States	Jeremiah Kipp Slant	"One can easily see why the virtuoso filmmaker still felt pride in this early achievement, saying, 'It helped me form my views' (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	David Parkinson Radio Times	"A shrewd insight into the reckless courage of youth and the grotesque poetry of combat (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Ruthe Stein SFGATE	"Nikolai Burlyayev is astonishing in the role (...) Tarkovsky had an innate sense of how much horror audiences could take, and he balances it with sweet flashbacks from Ivan's life."	POS
United States	Mark Chalon Smith Los Angeles Times	"The images can be jarring and even obtuse. But the abstract sway gives 'Ivan' a powerful resonance."	POS

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