Ivanovo detstvo (1962)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovski (Russian)
English title: Ivan's Childhood (a.k.a. My Name is Ivan)

This is an amazing film about a twelve-year-old boy who acts as a spy for the eastern front during the war, able to cross German lines unnoticed because of his young age.

Ivan’s family has been killed by the Germans and so he is determined to participate in some way to the war effort. He refuses to go to boarding school and prefers to stay with the soldiers and go on dangerous missions. His character is remarkably complex and the actor who plays him is very capable of making it believable.

The film is filled with stunningly beautiful images. Tarkovsky is a brilliant director, and this is one of his most widely-accessible works. His filmmaking became much more experimental and expressionistic later in his career. If you are interested in his work, see also « The Mirror » (Zerkalo, 1975), which also features a young boy. (I believe there is a listing for this film on Boy Acts.)

Ivan's Children and Mirror are both being released
in the UK on DVD on 22 July.  They are Artificial Eye/
Russico releases which have been pretty good recently,
so there's some hope these will be good versions.
Nikolai Burlyaev, who plays Ivan, was also in Tarkovsky's
Andre Rublev a few years later.  He plays Boriska the
Bell Maker in a stand-alone 25 mins sequence at the end of the film.  This is worth including in BoyActs's listing
and is also one of the most important flms of the 20th
century.

Although I have yet to see Kindergarten Jasen I know it's a different film.
Kindergarten was released in 1983 according to IMDB almost 20 years after this one came out.
I have seen this one though and it's very well done. I think its only on VHS in the US though.

Jasen this film 'Ivan's Childhood' is a classic. It has some of the most beautiful black and white cinematography I've ever seen. The story is very sad though, which of course is part of it's purpose in showing the futility of war.

Kindergarten was actually made for Russian TV and it is also a very good film. I'm sure it will eventually end up on DVD.

You can get now both "mirror" and "Ivan's childhood" at artificial-eye or another place. Artificial-eye has several other fine films. You can see their catalog at (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

The dvd transfers already available for this picture have a rather poor reputation (quality of a vhs).

A new one will soon be available through MK2 in a collection dedicated to Tarkovsky: wait and see.

Was there a release for English speaking countries? The film apparently has an English a.k.a. title "My Name Is Ivan". I'm going to do some looking.

Quote:



Ivanovo detstvo (1962) AKA: Ivan's Childhood

Available from The Criterion Collection
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Andrei Tarkovsky is one of my favorite directors.