Tarkovsky’s first feature film was called ‘Ivan’s Childhood (1962)’; he was twenty-eight then, and it took him five months to make the film. The original story was titled ‘Ivan,’ written by Vladimir Osipovich Bogomolov. What is the film about? Let us hear it from Tarkovsky himself:
‘In this film, I wanted to analyze the condition of people affected by war. When someone is destroyed, their natural development is disrupted, especially in the case of a child—this impact falls directly on the mind. I have shown the protagonist of this film as a character who, because of war, has been forced to deviate from normal life. Many things that would be abnormal in the life of a boy that age have happened to Ivan. All the sinister aspects of war seem to have possessed Ivan, and the result has been terrible.’
Filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieślowski lavishly praised this film. Bergman had said, ‘My discovery of Tarkovsky’s first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing before the door of a room, the keys to which I had never possessed. I had always wanted to enter that room but couldn’t. And there he was, moving about in it with complete ease!’
‘Ivan’s Childhood is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen in my life.’ This was the reaction of French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre after watching the film.
Twelve-year-old Ivan’s mother and little sister have been killed by Hitler’s Nazi forces. His father died in frontline combat. Now Ivan’s mind harbors only hatred and the urge for revenge. His childhood is destroyed; Ivan’s childhood has become memory. Now he has only one desire: to involve himself at any cost in the Soviet soldiers’ war against the Nazi forces.
Have you gone far away?
Yes, very far.
Everyone goes far away. I don’t know why they go.
…Through dialogues from scenes like these, ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ will carry you far away. Where, why—you’ll never know. Not even after the film ends.
In the birch grove. Far from all suffering and misery, in some dreamland… Kholin’s scene of kissing Masha is quite enjoyable. Masha remains constantly in a state of fear and hesitation. At first she refuses to be kissed, while Kholin is desperate to kiss her. There are some girls who will never kiss on their own initiative, but if someone grabs them and kisses them, they don’t mind much—rather, they act as if they had been waiting for that very moment. Masha is one such girl. Kholin embraces Masha in the gap of the dry trench running through the middle of that grove, lifts her in the air and kisses her. Masha is then in Kholin’s embrace, her feet dangling below, Kholin’s two feet spread in a V-shape, pushing against the ground on both sides to maintain their balance. From a distance, Galtsev comes running and stands a little away, watching the scene. Masha’s stubbornness, Kholin’s intense gaze, bringing Masha close through various tricks and strategies, and then that sudden kiss! No, it doesn’t end there. After the kiss, Masha becomes excited. Then Kholin tells her to go away. Masha asks, why should I go? In reply, Kholin simply says, go away, Masha, go away!
And another scene. Ivan is dreaming. Rain has begun. A cart loaded with apples is coming down the village dirt road. On that cart, atop the mountain of apples, Ivan and his little sister are sitting. Ivan takes an apple in his hand and lets it get wet in the rain. His sister looks at Ivan and smiles. She is offered the apple to eat, but she doesn’t eat it. Suddenly the rain stops. Many apples have fallen from the cart onto the sand below. A few horses are eating the fallen apples. Throughout the first part of this scene, I kept thinking I would see Ivan’s mother’s hand there among the apples! Mother would embrace them lovingly! When the cart was moving over the sand, I feared that a bullet might come from somewhere and hit Ivan’s sister! Well, why do such thoughts come to mind while watching films?
The Second World War was the bloodiest war in human history. This war took away the childhood of the Ivans through destruction and death. In Ivan’s eyes there were two worlds then. One world was the world of childhood dreams and sweet memories. The other world was the world of darkness, of ghastly reality. When the country is in crisis, when Ivan’s family is being killed indiscriminately, there is no time for Ivan to spend his childhood. This film is as much about humanity as it is about war. At the end of the film, a question from Galtsev captures the main tune of this movie: Is this war really not the last war of the world? We see quite a few Tarkovskian elements in this film: ruined houses, rows of trees, water stains, the language of apples, the presence of horses. They all announce their own existence, they speak. Tarkovsky makes them speak. Let me describe some scenes.
– They need to be buried.
This dialogue is Ivan’s. War is going on; at such times, whether corpses are given proper burial doesn’t matter much. During such times, burying the dead is difficult work. Two boys have been killed and hung up, with a placard that reads: Welcome. This scene seems to be welcoming humanity toward death! Just seeing this scene brings back the horror of ghastly war again and again. From the very beginning of the film, we keep thinking: What lies in Ivan’s fate? Tarkovsky is in no hurry with Ivan. Rather, he continues speaking until the very end of the film about human relationships during wartime, interactions, nature, and the psychology of a child who has lost his loved ones because of war.
– This is not your job, this is war.
– Not my job? Have you ever been to Trostenets?
Ivan is young; it’s not possible for him to fight in the war. Fighting is not his job. When he is told this, he asks the counter-question. Maly Trostenets is the name of a concentration camp. The Nazi forces used to capture people there, torture them, and kill them. Ivan’s family was murdered by the Nazis. From the anger and resentment he feels about this, he throws the question with bitter sarcasm.
– So, if you get injured, then?
– That’s none of your concern.
In this film, Tarkovsky has shown Ivan’s mental state in wartime circumstances with honesty toward the camera. The shadows of trees or the mist of the river—both convey that no one is well, everyone is anxious—for themselves, for their families. In fighting against the Nazi forces, Ivan could be injured, even killed. He doesn’t care about any of this. Now is not the time to care, now is only the time for revenge.
Compared to the soldiers Ivan is working for, he is half their size physically. At first glance, Ivan’s manner of speaking doesn’t make him seem like a child at all, nor does he appear to be someone who had a childhood. In his behavior and conversation with soldiers who are much older and stronger than him, he seems more mature than his age. Though his body is young, his mind has aged recklessly. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the experience of war has made Ivan so mature. Ivan has had to flee for miles and miles, swim through strong currents to save himself—that time gave Ivan such a confident voice. During wartime, human psychology follows no grammar. Necessity itself changes people. Ivan’s memories don’t let him remain normal, they always keep his thirst for revenge alive. In one scene he plays with a knife, and watching him, it seems as if he would take revenge for his family members’ murder this very moment if he encountered the Nazis. He is stubborn, obstinate, headstrong, childish by nature. This image of him is like the image of thousands of Ivans who have no home, no fear of danger, who have lost everything and have nothing left to lose. In their eyes there is only hatred for the Nazi forces and an intense desire for revenge. Their childhood is over, because they have seen death. The realization that one day I will die, and that day could be today—this understanding ends childhood. Ivan’s mind holds only one question: Where is the end of this war?… Such a person would have no childhood left in their mind; this is natural.
Let us read some lines from a poem by Andrei Tarkovsky’s father, the famous Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky:
When the war had not yet begun, one day Ivan walked by the water,
that path was surrounded by the shade of willow trees,
trees that never knew why they were born right by that water,
their name was Ivan’s Willow, only little Ivan knew.
In his raincoat tent, after the war Ivan returned,
to that crowd of willow trees.
Ivan’s Willow,
Ivan’s Willow,
only Ivan knew,
trying to float like a white boat, he lost his way right by the path.
Let us look at another poem by him:
Far from this world,
far from where we are,
waves don’t obey the shore’s command,
a star with a person, they are with birds, on the waves,
whether reality, dream, or death comes, waves keep crashing on waves.
In the first scene, Ivan is running, laughing, playing. Ivan’s mother appears before him, gives Ivan a bucket of water. Ivan dips his face and drinks the water. Ivan’s mother died long ago. Ivan’s mother has come to take Ivan away. To go from one world to another, one must go through certain rituals. There, water is used. There will always be water in Tarkovsky’s films, along with some water-related psychological cinema play. Ivan returns to the world from sleep, to the realm of death. After crossing the river to reach the Russian soldiers’ camp, they ask him, where are you coming from? He answers, from the other side. We can take this answer literally or figuratively.
Let us turn to Ivan’s second dream. He has fallen into a well. From there, his mother will pull him up. The well is a passage from one life to another, the water in the well is a mirror of Ivan’s life. Jean-Paul Sartre writes: ‘For this child, day is what night is too. We walk with him, but he does not walk with us. His path is different, a path we do not know.’ In the film, Ivan has crossed the boundary of fear and moved toward fearlessness, where death is as natural and inevitable as life, and his only destiny during his time alive is to keep fighting. He will not accept defeat; living by ordinary rules is not for him. In wartime, no one remains a child; children must become capable of doing everything like adults.
In one scene, we see Ivan encounter an old man whose everything has been destroyed by Nazi bombing. All that remains is a stove, a rooster, and a door. The old man is closing the door. It seems as though God has withdrawn His blessing from this old man. This entire scene, in Tarkovsky’s hands, becomes utterly realistic, beautiful as poetry, truer than a photograph.
Today, April 4th, is Tarkovsky’s birthday. Had he lived, he would have been 88 today. He died at 54. There are some people who, to live forever on earth, do not need great longevity. Tarkovsky was one such person. His entire life was devoted to the liberation of art from all forms of constraint. He often used to say, give me three things and I can create something worthwhile—blood, culture, and history. To speak of him, one could easily quote from his own film ‘Stalker (1979)’:
A person writes only when they are tormented, when doubt works within them, when they constantly need to prove themselves to themselves and to others. If it ever happens that I know for certain that I am a genius?…then why would I need to write again? What would drive me?
I end by writing some words in my own way:
As long as when we need light
we light fire, not ourselves,
as long as when boots sound
our hearts tremble within us,
as long as when someone is disliked
their head is severed from their neck,
as long as in all our eyes
people remain only friends or enemies,
and not simply human…
until then Tarkovsky will come and go
…in different names, different guises, in different lands!