Ivan's Childhood (UK-import)
Andrei Tarkovsky's prize-winning debut feature is an extraordinarily moving view of war and revenge. 12-year old Ivan is determined to avenge his family's death at the hands of the Nazis, and he joins a Russian partisan regiment as a scout. His ability to slip through enemy lines more easily than an adult makes him useful to the army, but, as his missions become increasingly dangerous, it is decided that he must be removed from the front line. Ivan resists and convinces his commanding officers to allow him to carry out one last expedition. The wonderful monochrome photography depicts Ivan's war in a series of memorable sequences: from the opening shots of him creeping through a dead and submerged forest; the flashback to happier days by the seashore; his devastated home village, to the final sequences in the paper-strewn ruins of Berlin in 1945.
All the categories
