Ivan's Childhood (1962) on Netflix
Orphaned by the German invasion, twelve-year-old Ivan Bondarev swims the Dnepr River to reach Soviet headquarters. The officers who look after him want to send him to military school.
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- Rotten Tomatoes100%
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Plot summary
Russian soldiers seize a soaked boy on the far bank of the Dnepr River and bring him to Lieutenant Galtsev, who questions him. Ivan Bondarev, twelve years old, insists that Galtsev telephone Number 51 at headquarters; the call brings orders from Lieutenant-Colonel Gryaznov to hand the boy paper and a pencil and to treat him well. Counting pine needles and seeds, Ivan sets down what he has seen behind the German lines. Captain Kholin arrives and embraces him, and Ivan is told that he will go to military school. Ivan, who wants only to keep fighting, runs away to the countryside. A car brings him back, and he warns that he will run again unless he returns across the river.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mosfilm first gave the screenplay to young director Eduard Abalov, but shooting was aborted and the project was terminated in December 1960 after the arts council heavily criticised the unusable first version. In June 1961 it went to Andrei Tarkovsky, who had applied after cinematographer Vadim Yusov told him about Ivan's Childhood.
- Nikolai Burlyayev was cast as Ivan partly because he had appeared in a student film by Andrei Konchalovsky, a friend and fellow student of Tarkovsky's at VGIK. Burlyayev passed several screen tests, and it is unclear whether anyone else auditioned; he later played Boriska in Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev.
SPOILER
Papava's screenplay Second Life spared Ivan execution, sending him instead to the Majdanek concentration camp, from which the advancing Soviet army frees him, and ended with Ivan meeting an officer in a train compartment. Bogomolov, unhappy with this ending, intervened and the screenplay was changed to reflect his original story.
