Word: ivans
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...Name Is Ivan. This extraordinary Russian film tells the tender and compelling story of the relationship between twelve-year-old Ivan, who is a spy behind the Nazi lines, and the Russian army officers who respect his bravery but worry over his loss of innocence. Director Tarkovsky not only dares to show the Soviet hero as an individual troubled with doubts and fears, but, even more surprisingly, also uses Christian symbolism in a most un-Soviet fashion...
...Understood. From there the plot thickened-and sickened. A dapper little fellow in a blue trench coat showed up at the apartment a few moments later, introduced himself to Vanya as "Ivan Ivanovich, your brother's driver." He added cryptically: "We have been trying to meet you for two days. We wanted to see you alone-to avoid trouble. You understand?" Vanya was pretty sure he understood. When the pair left, he called...
...Name Is Ivan. Swooping like a barn swallow, Ivan soars over the wooded hills to where his mother walks along a sun-dappled road carrying her water pails. "Hear the cuckoo, Mamma," he says. But there is a sharp sound, and the mother falls in the dust . . . Ivan awakens in a ruined barn, cold and crying out in terror...
...runs off into a swamp, the dawn mist floating in tatters through the dead trees. Ivan is a spy. For two years, he has been foraging information behind the Nazi lines, living on scraps and courage. Vengeance sustains him too, for at twelve, gaunt and pale, his whole reason for choosing this frightening life is to make the enemy pay for murdering his family. Arriving finally at a Russian outpost, Ivan (Kolya Burlaiev) is brought before a young lieutenant. He refuses to identify himself, insisting arrogantly that the officer "call up HQ and tell them that Bondarev is here...
...rest of this glowing Russian film follows Ivan through the days before his last spy mission. Ivan's dreams of his happy childhood so recently past come back to torture him when he sleeps. And always the dreams end in a moment of nightmare. For the most part, the reality of war is felt only in the occasional crack of a sniper's rifle or the firefly descent of flares, but its effect on Ivan and his comrades shows in their gropings for reassurance from one another. Even Masha, a girl medical officer with eyes like a grey...