Come and See

Even before the final credits rolled, I strongly suspected this movie would end up on my Top 20; in fact, perhaps even my Top 10. A teenage boy, his hearing impaired from having just been at the site of a bombing, and a young woman clutching at him, the two of them stumbling and sludging through a slimy, smelly bog. A stork in the woods as it rains. A cluster of dolls piled up on the floor with flies buzzing all over the room. You don't need vast, elaborately choreographed battle scenes to bring home the message of the senselessness and pain of war. Reading viewers' comments on the movie, it seems that most found the second half – which admittedly contained some of the most powerful massacre scenes ever filmed – as the most "satisfying". A few other viewers seem to imply the movie doesn't really get going until the second half. For me, it was the first half that got under my skin the most, for its cinematic originality, poetry and symbolic power. War is experienced by civilians as well as by soldiers: this may seem like an obvious statement, but it's only after watching Come and See that you realise how few war movies are truly about the suffering of the ordinary man and woman, defenseless child and frail senior citizen. Also, never before had I seen the plight of raped women in war so powerfully conveyed, and all this without the movie ever being voyeuristic or graphic. In cinema, rape is often portrayed as something that looks like rough sex. It isn't always quite clear why women get so upset over it. In Come and See, rape is shown as nothing but pure, unadulterated, hate-fuelled violence with only a superficial, external resemblance to sex. Unlike other raped women on film, you cannot imagine those in Come and See ever healing from their scars.

On another subject, whoever thinks this movie contains "propaganda" is obviously prejudiced against the movie simply because it's a Soviet production, and should think things over a little more carefully. It's astonishing how you can still find little traces of the Cold War mentality surviving to this day, even in younger viewers... The fact that as detractors of Come and See claim, Stalin "was no better than Hitler" has nothing to do with anything at all, in this movie's context - Klimov's picture is NOT about nationalistic oneupmanship on who had the worst tyrant - it's about the basic suffering of ordinary humanity in war - ANY war, though this one happened to be going on in Bielorussia. There was in fact ten times more propaganda in ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan than the whole of Come and See. This is painful, sublime cinema. I've always believed there's something special about Russians when it comes to producing art, especially literature - this movie goes some way towards reinforcing that impression in me.

The best true-to-life war movie I have ever seen, and possibly the best movie I have ever seen. My eyes were opened when I saw this for the first time a few days ago. It made me realise what I miss 99% of the time when watching movies. So few affect me like this one did.

No special effects of note, no big budget, no set-pieces of note, no heroes, no redemption. I feel quite sure the director has really captured what war 'feels' like - unlike Spielberg and Coppola's depictions of war, this director lived through WW2 and the horrific siege of Stalingrad, as well as spending many months researching the massacres in Belarus, one of which he depicts in this film (this from the DVD extras, well worth watching).

The direction, cinematography, soundtrack and AMAZING acting by a first-time untrained actor in the main role are faultless, in my humble opinion.

I found this film depressing and emotionally draining, but cannot wait to watch it again.

Come and See , well if you hate violence and brutality then you certainly wont want to see this. This Picture set in 1943 occupied Byelorussia is most probably the most true to life war movie ever, only Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List can come close. What is amazing in this picture , is how the director uses a child's perspective and view in circumstances that you can only describe as evil. The director pulls no punches in how bad times actually were for peasents and partisans alike as German and collaborators show the viewer how low and depraved a fascist military machine actually is.

I dont want to go into the plot , as this film is a MUST for anyone who considers themselves a film buff. Disturbing and terrifying scenes do not in anyway spoil the flow of the film , but when viewing this film , please desist from seeing this movie in the early evening , as you wont sleep.

The acting accolades of course goes to the main characters , but I wish to give a special mention for the Russian Partisan Commander , who was just simply , superb. Everything about him was what you'd expect a Red Army Officer to be. The looks , the attitude and the steely determination is simply a credit to the actor. The best scene involving the Red Army Commander was when they had captured an Einsatgruppen Unit , and the SS soldier , who knew they were facing death was allowed to speak , after there own Commanding Officer was pleading pitifully for his own life. The SS soldier tells his captors that they are sub-human and that there peasent belief in Marxism was grounds enough that they should be eradicated. The Red Army Commander then in just a few words tells his men , that they are not just fighting for Socialism , but also the right to exist.What happens after...well you'll have to see.

Come and See is nothing short of disturbing, awesome, powerful and brutal. This is the best film I have ever seen regarding films portraying the Eastern Front 1941-1945 war. This film should be engraved in gold as the standard for any budding war film director. Only Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List can be put in the same League table.

This is the greatest war movie ever. The best way to describe it, I reckon, is to pass on a newspaper article written by Ilya Ehrenburg during World War II when all the things which happen in "Come and See" were happening:

NIKOLAI VLADIMIROVICH -- ONE YEAR OLD Red Star, November 30 1943

How much the Germans have taken from us! They have taken from us not only loved ones, homes, and possessions. Life was complicated. There were dreams, joys, people, many books, many countries. But now everything in me is unchangeably focused on one thing: on the German. I see him -- blue-eyed and inhuman. He walks and kills, he sings and kills, he laughs and kills.

Among the papers of the town head of the village of Vyazovaya, recently liberated from the Germans, was found the following document:

"List of executed residents of the village of Vyazovaya, Uzninskaya region:

1) Muzalevskaya Natalia Ivanovna. 43 years old. 2) Muzalevskaya Natalia Nikolaevna. 18 years old. 3) Muzalevskaya Diana Nikolaevna. 16 years old. 4) Muzalevsky Lev Nikolaevich. 13 years old. 5) Muzalevskaya Valentina Nikolaevna. 9 years old. 6) Muzalevskaya Tamara Nikolaevna. 5 years old. 7) Muzalevskaya Rima Nikolaevna. 3 years old. 8) Davydov Vladimir Ilych. 35 years old. 9) Davydov Anatoli Vladimirovich. 8 years old. 10) Davydov Victor Vladimirovich. 5 years old. 11) Davydov Nikolai Vladimirovich. 1 year old. 12) Pryadochkina Maria Petrovna. 60 years old.

19 September 1942. Town head Muzalev."

Can this be forgotten? Is it possible to live knowing that people are walking the earth who shot Davydov Nikolai Vladimirovich to death, one year old, an infant, the baby Kolya, shot him and ordered his name entered into a list? It is hard to talk about it, but impossible to forget. We still have a long way to go. But we will get there. We will find them. We will find them under their beds, in their vegetarian cafeterias, at the ends of the Earth. We will remember the one-year-old Kolya Davydov. We will remember much. **********

The director, Klimov, concentrates on faces. From the faces you can see what they saw. Come. Come and see what this war was about in the Soviet Union. This was a war to the death; the Soviets knew and the Germans knew it. The Germans knew it because their leaders declared it so and 23 million Soviets paid with their lives. Ten million Germans also paid the price of that sale. The seller pays the price of the sale.

Come and See is one of the rare films that I can remember being emotionally drained upon its conclusion. The expression on my face as I sat there watching the credits scroll by seemed as worn and broken as that of the protagonist, Florya.

The film follows Florya as he "joins" (i.e. obtains a gun) a partisan group resisting the German advancements in the forests of his native Byelorussia during World War II. What he witnesses at the ripe age of 12 changes a once open-eyed, smiling face into a weathered, traumatized one that has experienced the unimaginable.

And of course the unimaginable were the Nazi atrocities committed during the war. Come and See does not focus on what the German Army did to the Jewish population but rather what they did to the native Soviet population. The Nazis were not only concerned with the utter destruction of the Jews but of the Bolshevik Party as well. And to Hitler that meant any man, woman, or child living under communist rule. And this "cleansing" fell into the hands of the SS who, as depicted in the movie, literally destroyed every sign of life.

Florya is able to escape death, unlike the rest of his family, but serves as a witness to the destruction and in this sense "dies" as his innocence and youth is lost. Klimov does a masterful job and depicting this slow death by concentrating on the facial expressions of Florya versus that of the Germans and both of their transformations over time. Klimov's Hitler montage at the end is especially moving and puts an interesting spin on the whole "what if" question.

This is the most historically accurate war movie I have ever seen and would highly recommend it to any war/history enthusiast. But I would also recommend it to any film watcher that realizes the goal of the medium which is to evoke emotion in the audience, and Come and See does just that.