Ivan and Two Swedes

Remembering Ballad of a Soldier, and in any case having an a-political weakness for Russian films, I looked forward to my belated viewing of My Name Is Ivan. I must say I was disappointed. There is indeed much sombre beauty to it, and often the Russian landscape, even in its devastation, is enchanting, but for all the incidental charm and the incidental reality of the war-horror, the central idea is false.

The story is of twelve-year-old Ivan whose mother has been killed by the Germans in World War II. He has become a spy, gathering information behind the enemy lines and bringing it back across the Pripet Marshes. We are shown him at the beginning making his way through muck and water to his own lines with secret information and demanding to be put in touch with headquarters. There indeed he is treated as a hero—but I could not get over my doubts as to whether any such small boys were playing the role of secret agent anywhere in World War II. Out of a dim past I recalled those Boy Allies books of World War I, where youngsters of Ivan’s age made their way (never mind how) to the Kaiser’s headquarters and filched the vital papers on which the outcome of the whole war depended. Ivan was just another Boy Ally.

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Francis Russell

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Remembering Ballad of a Soldier, and in any case having an a-political weakness for Russian films, I looked forward to my belated viewing of My Name Is Ivan. I must say I was disappointed. There is indeed much sombre beauty to it, and often the Russian landscape, even in its devastation, is enchanting, but for all the incidental charm and the incidental reality of the war-horror, the central idea is false.

The story is of twelve-year-old Ivan whose mother has been killed by the Germans in World War II. He has become a spy, gathering information behind the enemy lines and bringing it back across the Pripet Marshes. We are shown him at the beginning making his way through muck and water to his own lines with secret information and demanding to be put in touch with headquarters. There indeed he is treated as a hero—but I could not get over my doubts as to whether any such small boys were playing the role of secret agent anywhere in World War II. Out of a dim past I recalled those Boy Allies books of World War I, where youngsters of Ivan’s age made their way (never mind how) to the Kaiser’s headquarters and filched the vital papers on which the outcome of the whole war depended. Ivan was just another Boy Ally.