If this is the least accomplished film of Tarkovsky’s career, which is some kind of consensus, I can’t wait to see the rest of his films that i haven’t seen yet, because I thought this was pretty great, especially as a debut. It is definitely minor, lacking the ideas and spirituality (Au Hasard Balthazar???) that Stalker and Solaris are defined by. As a DVD presentation at least, this is the best-looking thing I have seen by Tarkovsky. “Lush” kept repeating in my head on a loop. The photography was almost pristine to the point of being distracting.
The little boy playing Ivan is a great actor. He’s a snotty boy ordering around full-grown soldiers, and somehow comes across as the more important figure just based on his tone of voice and facial expressions.
There is a strange, random subplot involving a female soldier and a soldier who is trying to court her that may or may not exist solely because they needed more scenes in the stunning forest. Lush. To be honest, they could have inserted a subplot about a rabid dog trying to find the perfect tree to take a piss on in that forest and I would have welcomed it just so I could see more of it. Beautiful.
In the end this feels like a well shot, well paced, and well-acted but standard Russian war film, but the themes of entering a dense, malevolent zone peaks through in this film, which is pleasant to see. There are other connections between this and his later work, also fun to pick up on. Not a bad hour and a half, at all.