"Иваново детство" is a perfect transition from realism to lyricism. It marks the arrival of a great formalist in contemporary film and is also a masterpiece of war-themed films during the Soviet Union's "Thaw" period.
"Иваново детство" is already a re-transformation of Soviet anti-fascist films in the 1960s. The director Andrei Tarkovsky boldly used a young boy Ivan as the protagonist, breaking through the previous Soviet children’s films. The child’s angelic and political conceptual image depicts the tremendous pressure that Ivan this child has endured in the war, witnessing the cruelty of the war with his precocious and innocent eyes.
The director devoted his own understanding of war and human nature to Ivan, using Ivan's dream and reality to present a realistic and symbolic war experience, giving the film a certain degree of philosophical discussion.
The director devoted his own understanding of war and human nature to Ivan, using Ivan's dream and reality to present a realistic and symbolic war experience, giving the film a certain degree of philosophical discussion.
