Greatest War Film You Have Not Seen Might Be the GREATEST War Film Of All Time
I have reviewed this movie twice at www.fredpahlke.com. This is a combination of both.
I have viewed thousands of movies in my sixty-four years. Some I cannot tell you about as I have little remembrance of. Others I have viewed many times through the years. But of all the movies that I have had the pleasure, or not, to see, only one can I say this.
“A movie that I have only viewed once and will not see again. It creeped into my psyche on that first viewing. The images come to mind on a regular basis. Those images are not good. It is not a film for entertainment. It is horrific and most disturbing.”
Movie reviewer Vlad B. writes: The title, “Come and See”, taken from the frequently repeating lines of the book of Revelation, clearly dares the audience to assume the role of St. John, witnessing the Apocalypse, or rather one of the darkest periods in the history of humankind. What we are assaulted with, plays somewhat like a demented version of “Modern Times” transpiring across the panel of Brueghel’s “Triumph of Death”, if such a combination is possible. The camera is consistently filtered through a murky, slightly unfocused gaze, and the sound is often heard through shell-shocked ears. This tends to eerily distance the events, yet make them even more frightening and unsettling. Much of the dialogue lacks specific meaning or even concrete sentences – it is replaced by subhuman growling, wailing and other spine-chilling, guttural sounds of the war. What the director prepares is something Spielberg would never even dream of – no sign of compromise with the audience.
A film that takes place in Belarus, Eastern Front, World War II, COME AND SEE is not your standard war flick. It is, at times, a film that seems to wonder, like being in a dream that you cannot explain and really do not want to be in. A nightmare that forebodes a coming horror that you cannot escape from, yet one that you cannot avoid. You think, why am I here, and why do I continue to participate in this shit, knowing that I will not like what my future hold for me. To tell the story of this movie and to go into detail would turn most of any future viewer off, and that is something that I will let you know right now. If you have any trepidation’s of witnessing a true view at complete horror dished out by total evil in a way that you will not forget what you have viewed, do not see this movie. If the sights and sounds of “List” were too much for you, multiple that by ten and you get COME AND SEE.
A film that takes place in Belarus, Eastern Front, World War II, COME AND SEE is not your standard war flick. It is, at times, a film that seems to wonder, like being in a dream that you cannot explain and really do not want to be in. A nightmare that forebodes a coming horror that you cannot escape from, yet one that you cannot avoid. You think, why am I here, and why do I continue to participate in this shit, knowing that I will not like what my future hold for me. To tell the story of this movie and to go into detail would turn most of any future viewer off, and that is something that I will let you know right now. If you any trepidation’s of witnessing a true view at complete horror dished out by total evil in a way that you will not forget what you have viewed, do not see this movie. If the sights and sounds of “List” were too much for you, multiple that by ten and you get COME AND SEE
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Russian Director Elem Klimov’s story of one boy’s emotional experiences with the destruction of his homeland by an evil force has little comparison, but as in a 2001 review, J. Hoberman of The Village Voice said of Come and See, writing the following:
“Directed for baroque intensity, Come and See is a robust art film with aspirations to the visionary – not so much graphic as leisurely literal-minded in its representation of mass murder. (The movie has been compared both to Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, and it would not be surprising to learn that Steven Spielberg had screened it before making either of these.”
Roger Ebert, in 2001 said: …….. “one of the most devastating films ever about anything, and in it, the survivors must envy the dead… The film depicts brutality and is occasionally very realistic, but there’s an overlay of muted nightmarish exaggeration… I must not describe the famous sequence at the end. It must unfold as a surprise for you. It pretends to roll back history. You will see how. It is unutterably depressing, because history can never undo itself, and is with us forever.”
A review by Rob Halpin from London, England sums it up: 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 peasants and partisans alike as German and collaborators show the viewer how low and depraved a fascist military machine actually is.
Finally, British magazine The Word wrote that “Come and See is widely regarded as the finest war film ever made, though possibly not by Great Escape fans.”
I do not, as I have already said, 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 if you have any concept of good and evil, you will not feel well trying to get to 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 their own Commanding Officer was pleading pitifully for his own life. The SS soldier tells his captors that they are sub-human and that their peasant 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. ( I recognize the evil’s of Socialism here, as in fact, it represents an evil that is just this side of the Nazi regime.)
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.
