Arquivo

Ivan is 12 years old and works as a spy on the Eastern frontline during World War II. Without drawing attention to himself, he crosses the German border to collect information while three Soviet officials are tasked with looking after him. Narrated in a non-linear fashion, the fi lm interweaves moments from his life with his family before the beginning of the conflict with the traumatic reality of World War II. Tarkovsky won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with Ivan’s Childhood, his debut feature fi lm. The director was caught by surprise since the submission had been made by the state’s fi lm studio. The award made the Russian intelligentsia enthusiastic about Tarkovsky and was decisive in allowing the director to begin working freely and to fully communicate his ideas about cinema. Ivan is an even more incredible feat when one considers that Tarkovsky had to take control of a production already half-finished – the first director, Eduard Abalov, had been fi red by the studio – as well as having to rewrite the script and work with half of the budget needed for the fi lm. Ivan was part of a string of post-war Soviet films that praised youth, especially the characterization of the “teenage hero”. The main idea was to stimulate a complete reconstruction of the nation after terrible losses. However, unlike the beauty and poetry that depicts innocence lost, the fi lm conveyed an unequivocal hint of bitterness and fully revealed the monstrous loneliness of the young soldier-spy, besides abandoning the viewer in a truly inglorious finale.