leonguber

Although this movie is not a documentary, it surely documents a large part of the Russian school life. Valeria Gai Germanika creates an extremely realistic environment where the camera acquires an almost voyeuristic nature. The movie is filmed in an amateur style with uncut scenes and a hand held camera. The movie touches and examines the sore wounds of the young generation. The camera becomes an x-ray that penetrates the outer shell and reveals the corruption of the students and the teachers. The difference in values between the young and the old generation is portrayed in vivid colors. The preoccupation of the young with appearance, popularity, love, and sexuality clashes with the solid standards of the older generation. The sub cultures that are so popular in Russian are also portrayed clearly. The emerging skinhead and the Emo girl are like stereotypical characters that exist in every school.

The richness of this film is amazing – Tarkovsky manages to engage the viewer with an astonishing cinematography that touches the depths of human nature. The black outcomes of war are portrayed very clearly and we can almost feel how Ivan is robbed from his childhood and how nature is robbed of its harmony. The war results not only in physical injuries and wounds, but also in mental sores that no bandage can cover. In times of war a child matures very quickly and that leads to inner discomfort and frustration since he is plucked out too early from his playful childhood. He is like a fruit that is not yet ripe to observe that brutality and cruelty or war.