Come and See (1985)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Come and See (1985) – E. Klimov

After watching Shoah (1985; a 9-hour documentary where Holocaust survivors are interviewed) earlier this year, it is hard to imagine a more horrific portrayal of wartime evil – but Come And See (also 1985; a fictional account of a real atrocity during WWII in modern-day Belarus) comes close. We begin, as many war movies do, with wet-behind-the-ears Flyora (Aleksey Kravchenko), aged 14 or so, eager to join the partisans and fight against the invading German army.  I think director Elem Klimov may have been luring viewers in, counting on their expectations that his film would be true to the cliché that sees boys grow into men as a result of the challenges of war (but which really gives audiences a thrilling action-adventure story rather than any “real” glimpse of slaughter). So, we see Flyora left behind as the partisans march out, his hopes dashed – he meets a young girl and they dally together before the bombing starts and he is shellshocked. They return to his village and everyone is gone (she sees what he does not see – they have been murdered). From this point on, as the pair move on to a refugee camp and he joins a small party on an expedition to gather supplies, we gradually witness one horror after another, often portrayed in a surreal perhaps psychedelic fashion (as when we see things from Flyora’s deafened/shellshocked perspective). Klimov’s goal becomes clear – this is a portrayal of trauma, not heroism. As the anecdotes accumulate, chaos begins to mount and the German army appears as an immoral circus, viciously and wickedly enacting war crimes that explicitly echo Shoah’s descriptions (the innocent are killed). These scenes are relentless and there is no relief (even as the partisans strike back) – until the final unbelievable “pure cinema” moments that ask, implicitly, whether this could have all been avoided. Not for the faint of heart – a terrifying depiction of the evil that humans can do.