Right off the bat, I want to state that if this wasn't a tribute to Tarkovsky, it would bear such a striking resemblance to one of his films that a viewer might mistake it for one of his works. But I'll get into that. I found myself both liking and disliking this film. What I liked about it: a mysterious father figure, a surviving soldier's attitudic overtone, the vastly changing scenary, and the general plotline. What held back my appeal was Ivan (as a character), the open-ended finish, and the suddeness of some interactions. For example, Ivan's changing moods- almost like mood swings- made me shake my head. One minute, he's afraid to jump off a platform into a lake, the next he wants to beat up his brother. Granted, these changes match those of a tween. But then the development in his character. He's so scared that he wants to go home- but he'll venture off into big blue waters and threaten his father with a pocket knife. A little too much to buy into.
But Andrei and Andrei (the directors) are comparative. Tributive and useful images and uses of the various elements (earth, fire, water, wind). The use of a photography book for past experiences and memories. An elusive father figure, an "unkind" or "unnoticing" mother, and a vacant-expressioned grandmother. All obvious tributes to a great Russian director from another.
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Interesting--I can definitely see what you mean by there being some potential incompatibilities in Ivan's character. Though I would suggest that we find precisely such contradictions in real people as well--"consistency" is often something that, to me at least, prevents characters from taking on the sort of life that I often feel emananting from the three figures in this film.
ReplyDeleteAnd good eye for the Tarkovskian intertext that we find in this film. It really does end up being a fascinating interrelationship Zviagintsev develops with Tarkovsky's oeuvre.