Dominic-Berlemann Reviews

Come and See (1985)

Deeply disturbing tour de force into the abyss of the Nazi's war of annihilation in the Eastern theater

[10/10 · 28 October 2007]

Once you've seen this 1985 movie by Elem Klimov, you'll never be able to forget it. The reasons for this are to be seen both in the aesthetic quality of the realization of the script, to which Ales Adamovich contributed as well as the director, and in the extraordinary sujet, the brutal elimination of a Belorussian village and its inhabitants at the hands of the SS in 1943, something that happened to 628 villages in Belarus alone between 1941 and 1944. Partisan warfare behind the front-lines forms the background of this profoundly shocking and deeply moving drama. The pubescent protagonist of the movie, the 14 year-old Flyora, against the will of his mother stubbornly and somewhat naively insists to be allowed to join the ranks of the Soviet partisans operating from the relative security of the impenetrable woods in the area of his native village. The partisans, however, don't think young Flyora to be of much use, and therefore give him only minor tasks like standing on guard. At the partisan encampment he meets Glasha, a girl romantically linked with Kasatch, the leader of the partisan unit. In the course of the film, the almost extra-terrestrial beauty of the girl sharply contrasts with the ever-increasing brutalities of war. After an air raid on the partisan camp, Flyora and Glasha decide to make it for the boy's nearby home village. However, the villagers have all been executed, quite likely because despite all precautions it must have become known to the German occupiers that a boy from the village had joined the guerilla forces. Their bodies can be seen for the fraction of a second piled up like culled cattle behind a wooden house. Flyora feels guilty for what happened and heads back to his fellow partisans, leaving behind Glasha. Shortly after that, the boy tries to steal a cow from another village in order to support his unit, yet Flyora is spotted by the German troops that happen to be in the place at the same time. With difficulty, Flyora manages to escape and to disguise himself as an innocent farm-boy, but his actions trigger off an unimaginable act of revenge on the part of the SS men. The following part of the movie will definitely make some viewers TURN OFF their TVs, as it realistically depicts in great detail the slaughtering of the village people by sadistic and partly intoxicated SS troops going on about their deadly 'business' in what seems to be unscrupulous routine fashion, standard procedure. At the same time, the movie's aesthetic foundation undergoes a radical change: After the poetic, neo-expressionistic start to the movie which in many respects like its heavy symbolism is typical of 1970s and 1980s Soviet art cinema, the director switches to a purely naturalistic mode of presentation which lets the horrible facts speak for themselves. Those who manage to endure this part of the movie right to the end at least are rewarded with the almost cathartic arrest and subsequent execution of the SS unit's leaders and their Belorussian accomplices responsible for these horrific atrocities. At the end, it becomes clear that the experiences of the boy have deeply etched themselves into his soul and his face, which is disfigured by wrinkles making him look like an old man by the end of the movie. All in all, this is a true masterpiece which delineates the dreadful historical truth in an adequate artistic fashion bare of propagandistic tendencies.

Quest for Fire (1981)

Highly clever and still captivating after more than a quarter of a century

[10/10 · 28 October 2007]

This movie by Jean-Jacques Annaud is highly recommended. Shot in the early 1980s and now a classic of sorts, it delineates the fate of a small Neanderthal tribe which has lost its most important possession, a torch of fire, in a fierce battle with some ape-like hairy creatures resembling Homo erectus (which actually didn't exist at the same time as the Neanderthals, one of the movie's many paleoanthropological blunders not diminishing the flick's general cinematic value). Because they apparently only know how to use fire without being aware of how to make it, the tribe's three most capable warriors, portrayed convincingly by Everett McGill, Ron Perlman and Nameer El Kadi, set off on a trip to reignite the torch for their kinsfolk. On the journey they encounter a female Homo sapiens, played by the unforgettable Rae Dawn Chong. Some sort of culture shock takes place, as it begins to dawn on the Neanderthals that they are culturally and technologically inferior to their taller, leaner cousins. The big question is: will the Neanderthals be able to learn from their human cousins or are they doomed to die out? The movie offers a uniquely imaginative story, marvelous landscapes partly shot in the Scottish Highlands, Western Canada's Badlands and Kenya's Savannah, an astonishing proto-human language developed by Anthony Burgess and spherical music forming a perfect backdrop to the epic story. Also, there is a 25 min. special feature about film production on the DVD, which is highly informative. This DVD is definitely worth your dough.

Triumph Over Violence (1965)

Bizarre mix of analytic documentary and anti-Western propaganda

[6/10 · 4 August 2007]

This 1965 documentary by Mikhail Romm is an excellent example of the special position of film directors in the former Soviet Union, who didn't have to succumb to the economic hardships typically imposed on art by Western market economies. However, the film implicitly reveals the political interventions under which all art suffered under the Soviet system. On the one hand, Romm displays a strong and original will to educate mankind in a Soviet style sense of humanism, which by today's standards appears to be rather naive, if not outright ridiculous. On the other hand the documentary simply brushes aside important historical events in order to (over-)emphasize the undeniable contributions of the Red Army and of Soviet society in general to overthrowing fascism in the Great Patriotic War. There is no mention of 1939's Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, in which Hitler and Stalin divided Polish territory amongst themselves like pieces of pie, no word about the willingness of many Soviet citizens to collaborate with the Nazis because of overwhelming Russian dominance in the USSR, nothing about the fact that Britain's RAF was the only power providing successful military resistance to the Nazi war machine in 1940/41, and the decisive invasion of Normandy is not considered either. The whole war is painted as a primarily Soviet affair. The depiction of US marines as the fascist hordes of the Cold War really puts the icing on the cake, as it puts Americas's troops in the same line with some of world history's most appalling war crimes, for the apparent propagandistic benefits. However, Romm's approach is interesting insofar as it combines the analysis of fascism with sarcastic comments uncovering at least the nature of Hitler's bestial tyranny. However, most of these comments are rather common-place, such as alluding to Goerings plump figure or Hitler's obsessions with dogs and so on. This movie is not a must, but despite its obvious propagandistic tendency it provides the viewer with some interesting insights - not only about the causes of fascism, but also about the nature of Soviet dictatorship as well.