Movie of the Day: Ivan's Childhood (1962)

Ivan's Childhood (1962) ~ Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

A poetic and moving masterpiece. Moving and haunting.

95 min  -  Drama | War  -  7 January 1963 (Sweden)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Writers: Vladimir Bogomolov (story & screenplay)

Stars: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov

Ivan's Childhood

Andrei Tarkovsky Biography

Born: April 4, 1932 in Zavrazhe, Russia
Died: December 29, 1986 (age 54) in Paris, France

"The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei M. Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school V.G.I.K.

He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivanovo detstvo (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andrei Rublyov (1969), which was banned by the Soviet authorities until 1971. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face.

Solyaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's (2001) (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of it), but he ran into official trouble again with Zerkalo (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure.

Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe.

His last film, Offret (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year." (IMDB)