Ivan's Childhood

The most impressive part of Ivan's Childhood was really the most impressive part Tarkovsky's films in general, his ability to recapture reality. We saw in Mirror, Tarkovsky's lack of the Socialist Realist imagery or message that had dominated Russian cinema, and this trend id really perfected in Ivan's Childhood. Tarkovsky's depiction of Ivan is problematic in this way, as I wrote in my paper for this class (and yes, this is blog cheating, but I don't care). Ivan's Childhood could be seen as anti-Nazi or anti-war, but what seems more poignant in this film is Tarkovsky's recapturing of the dismal situational aspects of war in general, otherwise he would probably not show his protagonist as a strong-willed, and almost unstoppable character, but rather as an unwitting victim (although in the case of Ivan it is probably both). This attempt to capture reality by the director then really has no message itself; it only has the message which we, the audience, project onto it. Tarkovsky's film is not anti-Nazi or anti-war, but instead it would be more fitting to say that we ourselves are anti-Nazi or that the war itself is anti-war through the progression of its own atrocities.