Product: My Name Is Ivan [VHS] (1963)
Rating: 4.0
black and white wonder
after Stalin's death during the Kruschev era quite a few good Russian directors produced a good number of movies and Tarkovsky was from the era. This movie has been adapted from the book Ivan by Vladimir Bogomolov which is hard to get in English.Tarkovsky shows how much can be attained through cinematography, just by using light and shadow, if you do not have a huge budget. Considering that this was Tarkovsky's first movie out of the school - this is a monumental achievement. It bring in the real atmosphere of the war in the backdrop of Russian winter. Every screen is like a picture postcard and actors are really derivatives and are automatically integrated in the atmosphere.Some of the clips at the end of the movie is from WWII and I do not think that was necessary - but again it gives the perspective to the ending - which I will not tell you. After this rest of Tarkovsky movies are quite abstract and difficult.