The Return

This was the second time I have seen this film. So in that regard, it helped me to notice a lot of things that I hadn't really noticed the first time around.
For example, in the beginning Ivan refuses to jump off the tower because he is afraid of heights, so his mother comes to rescue him and he gladly lets her help him. However, at the end, as he runs from his father, he runs up the tower to escape him and then ultimately says he will jump IF his father comes up. This contrasted the beginning and end well.

While looking for similarities between this and Tarkovsky, I noticed a few. First of all, in Mirror the mother sits on the fence smoking while she awaits the fathers return home. In The Return, the mother stands smoking waiting for her boys to return home in order to tell them of their father's arrival.
Also, the boys choose to look through the art book in order to find the picture of their father.

The end mirrors the beginning in one other regard as well. In the beginning the boys find a picture of their whole family after their father has just returned home, but after his death in the end, they find a new picture that is very similar but simply has the mother and sons in it.
Another thing that struck out was the fact that the father's last act was of compassion. He is mirroring the mother's efforts in the beginning, but this time Ivan refuses to accept his help and it leads to the father's death.
The rope as it sinks in to the water along with the boat and father also mirrors the beginning when the boys are jumping into the water.

All of these mirrors show that life will attempt to go back to how it was before the father arrived, but most likely it will not succeed, simply because of this experience now.

Lastly, it also struck me that Ivan's last words to his father actually call him Dad. Instead of his strict refusals to call his father by father throughout the movie, after he is dead, he finally yells it out.

[The last scene mirrored the last scene from Tarkovsky as the camera retracted through the forest.]