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Katok i skripka (1961)
Tarkovsky's first major acomplishment
It's hard to trace back exactly when Tarkovsky became a cinematic genius. Local and international audiences were shocked by his cold and bitter film about a kid who's life is engulfed in the horrors of WWII in Ivan's Childhood. He was only 30 and had already developed what would later become his trademark and main philosophy: the way in which time affects the overall atmosphere and pace of the story, while also creating some of the most beautiful shots moviegoers will ever have the pleasure to see. The movie became an instant classic and has never left the general opinion that it is one of the best debuts of all time. Just like Ingmar Bergman said back at the time, discovering Tarkovsky was like a miracle.
If you look closer into Tarkovsky's first steps into filmmaking, you will find that his most important short film is The Steamroller and the Violin. Made only two years before Ivan's Childhood, it was Tarkovsky's diploma film, and the first time with him as the main man behind the camera with directing and co-writing credits.
The film is about Sasha, a young boy who plays violin, and his short encounters with Sergey, a man who works as a steamroller driver. This is what most of the film offers, with its main focus on Sasha's learning about what life is from the perspective of a normal russian worker. He learns to appreciate food, as Sergey yells at him when he throws some bread to the ground, "do you think bread grows on trees?"; Sergey gets angry for obvious reasons, we barely see that he has any possessions, that slice of bread might have costed him hours of work, but Sasha didn't know that, he comes from a higher class than his new friend.
These are two worlds that Tarkovsky sets with the main purpose of making them collide. Sasha doesn't do very well at the violin classes, as he can't keep up with the compositions' tempo, "what am I going to do with you? Too much imagination..." says his teacher; and that exact same description is what Sasha is all about, he's the creative and expressive youth, one which arises from the depressive post-war era that affected the entire world. Some older kids make fun of him and his violin, they are more interested in playing and fighting than in making music, those are the values the last decades have brought upon them. Sergey is also a product of his era, he's destined to drive a steamroller and pray that he gets to bring food to the table, he doesn't know much about music, but we learn that he sees good in Sasha, a sort of good that needs some touch with the real world.
There's a very beautiful sequence when they go see a building being demolished. Sasha gets lost and loses touch with Sergey, and just then the wrecking ball bursts through the walls and the entire thing falls apart. He is afraid at first, but he quickly becomes marveled because of all the work that the people in charge are doing, it's probably the first time he had seen something like that. They then go to eat something in an empty building, and Sasha starts teaching Sergey how the violin works, what is its resonance, and the sounds it can make. He then starts playing, the way it is shot is just as wonderful as the music Sasha interprets, he plays it just the way he wants. Sergey lays back and enjoys the first concert he has heard probably in his whole life. There you have it, the entire short film in two scenes.
It is quite surprising to see something this uplifting and charming in a Tarkovsky film, but his fingerprints are all over here. The wide, textured shots; the atmospheric silences and his original use of music and sound design are present and give signs of what would then be perfected in Ivan's Childhood. Even though, we cannot deny that the short may feel like one of the very few instances where Tarkovsky tries to force certain feelings to come out of the audience, sometimes using music at the wrong time or some very questionable secondary characters. But nonetheless, this short stands by itself because of its attempt to portray the entire scope of what Tarkovsky's people suffered at the time in a very soft and caring way, these are the early marks of a true genius.