COME AND SEE
COME AND SEE is a film that stares you in the eye and begs you not to look the other way.
With a restoration and rerelease by The Criterion Collection in 2020, COME AND SEE is finding a new audience thirty five years after its initial release with its timeless anti-war message and provocative approach to filmmaking. Many are referring to the story of a young boy joining resistance fighters in Belarus against the Nazis as the most horrifying or terrifying film of all time, and I believe these sensational claims may be a disservice to the film.
By modern standards, the film is rather restrained in the visual depictions of graphic violence. Instead, the audience sees the psychological torment play out on the face of Florya, a young boy played by Aleksey Kravchenko, as he looks into the camera lens. What’s truly terrifying, is humanity’s history, and even more so, the chance that history will repeat itself.
Forty years after the end of World War II, and with mounting fear that the Cold War could erupt into WWIII, director Elem Klimov and writer Ales Adamovich made COME AND SEE in 1985 to remind the world of the devastation of war. The film focuses on the Nazi’s ethnic cleansing in Belarus that lead to more than 2.4 million Belarusians dying, 1 in 4 people, and the destruction of over 200 cities.
COME AND SEE wasn’t born from a theoretical philosophy on war, or as an experiment in pushing the boundaries of cinema. It comes from the lived experiences of Klimov and Adamovich. As a child, Klimov was forced to flee his home with his mother and baby brother after Nazi air raids in the Battle Of Stalingrad set the city on fire. As a teenager, Adamovich joined the partisan fighters in Belarus against the Nazis. To them, this was more than a film. Adamovich says, “This is something we must leave after us. As evidence of war, and as a plea for peace.”
Directing the story was a challenge and Klimov knew he had to find the balance between showing the horrors of war but not letting it be so horrifying that no one would see the film. As audience members we don’t see the off-screen actions of all the slaughter, torture, rape, and destruction. What we do see is the effects these actions have on the human face, as the characters look into the camera lens and lock eyes with us. And with this connection, in a tightly framed boxy 1.37 ratio, there is nothing to see but their pain. We are further bonded to these characters with the use of a steadicam that follows them step for step and drags us through the events as the appear to unfold in the chaos of real time.
In addition to creating eye contact with the audience, COME AND SEE subtly breaks the fourth wall with dialogue that can be interpreted as a Greek Chorus speaking to the audience. “We need an audience.” “Look straight into the camera.” “Do you hear?” As commander Kosach speaks to the partisan troops before they leave for battle at the end of the first act, it also feels as if he is speaking to us about the horrors that await us. “I’m going to tell you the truth. This is going to be a hard time for us. We won’t have any cowards here. Not one of you.” As Flyora and other characters stare at us in silence towards the end of the film, their eyes ask what we will do to stop this pain.
The Soviet film censors blocked COME AND SEE from being put into production for over eight years because they believed the script was too realistic and would be viewed as propaganda. One positive action the censors had on the film was preventing it from being released under its original title: Kill Hitler. If we were to indulge in the time travel fantasy and go back in time to kill Hitler as a child, that would falsely absolve of us the necessity to confront the various faces of evil that exist in our present reality. Klimov said “Kill Hitler” wasn’t about stopping the man, but the idea. “Kill the Hitler within yourself. Because we all have our demons to some extent or other.”
The film’s title was found in The Book Of Revelation: “ ‘Come and see!’ And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” COME AND SEE confronts the audience, and drags us through hell and uses despair to inspire us to confront suffering whenever and however we can. The film is over. But the struggle is not.
- by Duncan
Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help those who are physically suffering in your community, and supporting Amnesty International to fight injustice around the world.
For Fans Of / Further Viewing
IVAN’S CHILDHOOD - Tarkovsky’s Soviet cinema about a child solder in WWII.
FUNNY GAMES - Breaking the 4th wall to confront the audience in why they are “participating“ in viewing this violence.
1917 - Come And See’s steadicam influence can be seen in Roger Deakins Oscar winning cinematography.
WALTZ WITH BASHIR - My favorite TRUE anti-war film before seeing Come and See.