Product: My Name Is Ivan [VHS] (1963)
Rating: 4.0
More conventional that Andrei's later work, but still essential....
This is Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature film, and it's wonderful. It doesn't have the epic feel of grandeur and astonishment of his later work, and it's quite conventional compared to the mystery and ambiguity of films like Solaris and Stalker, but it's still very good and has to be seen by anyone who loves Tarkovsky, Russian cinema, and cinema in general. The film was not actually instigated by Tarkovsky himself. The original director had quit/got fired, and the production was going to be shut down. Tarkovsky, fresh out of the Soviet film school, took the film on, and made it his own. I'm glad that Criterion is releasing this, as earlier VHS and laserdisc copies weren't the greatest transfers, and some material had been cut (mostly the stock WWII footage that Tarkovsky used at the end of the film). For those who don't like Tarkovsky later, lengthy, abstract films, you may like this one, as it is much more straightforward, but still definitely a Tarkovsky film.