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Come and See (1985)

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From Time Out Film Guide

Soviet Belorussia, near the Polish border, 1943. Florya, a young partisan, left behind as his unit moves to prepare for a renewed German advance, returns to his village to find only a mass of bodies, including those of his family, and later witnesses the entire population of a near-by town being machine-gunned and burnt to death. This epic, allegorical and traumatising enactment of the hellish experience of war (especially its effect upon a generation of the Soviet people) is rendered by Klimov - albeit unintentionally - as a disorienting and undifferentiated amalgam of almost lyrical poeticism and expressionist nightmare.

Author: WH

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Ricardo said...

Posted on Apr 18 2011 23:40 This is both an incredibly shocking and intensely beautiful film for a number of reasons. Firstly, for the way in which landscape and nature imbue the film with a surrealism that lapses into a heavy sense of foreboding. Secondly, the way Klimov registers the torment and horror on the faces of his main characters - a glimpse of what lies behind the innocence of beauty. Lastly, the artistry of the soundtrack, mixing realism and the odd snatches of classical and popular music with the most discordant of cacophanies. It all amounts to a viewing experience of visceral point-of-view involvement and unforgettable imagery. Forget Private Ryan. This is the definitive Second World War film.

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Al said...

Posted on Dec 05 2010 19:26 The barn burning sequence is one of the most unsettling scene ever put to film. One's mind struggles to comprehend not what might have been, but what was.

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