Va' e vedi

What most of the foreign viewers perhaps don't understand is that the factual side of the movie has always been a common knowledge among millions of Russians especially those of older generations. People like me, who were born 10-15 years after the war ended, knew it all along first hand from the stories told by parents and grandparents actually living through those times and events. My own mother at the age of seven was thrown by German soldiers into a barn that got lit, her front teeth were knocked out by the butt of a German soldier's rifle and she, along with tenth of other village kids, was saved by my grand-mother and other villagers only because some partisans had chosen to attack and deliberate the village that day. What most of Western viewers find horrifying, shocking and disturbing is nothing but the truth being accurately depicted by some later movie makers. This movie is pretty much like a documentary that could actually be shot with the help of some sort of a "time machine" in case there was one in 1985 when the movie got filmed.

There's not much one can say about this movie, besides "Be warned, it's going to hurt you - a lot". The story is simple: Byelorussia in 1943 and it's Hell on the Earth. The Nazis are fighting a no-quarter-given-or-asked war against huge Soviet partisan units, and the population is caught in between (historically the German security forces destroyed hundred of Byelorussian villages murdering most of the population in the effort to "clear" the rear of Third Panzer Army). Those who haven't been deported or killed by the Nazis are trying to join the partisans. One of them is Florya, a young boy - and in his quest to "join the fight" he get much more he had bargained for. It's a movie about an apocalyptic world (the title is taken from the Book of Revelation, a most of the movie looks like it has been filmed on another planet), but unfortunately it was all-real. The emotional centre of the movie is a lengthy sequence involving the destruction of a village, with all the sickening (but not exploitative) details shown with cold determination. There's no catharsis (this is not Schindler's List!), no hope, no redemption - even the eventual revenge against the village's destroyers become just a sad and murderous business. "Come And See" is a difficult, violent and surprisingly poetic movie, compared to which even classics like "Saving Private Ryan" (Spielberg payed a homage to this movie on SPR's beginning) or "The Thin Red Line" seems just artificial. This is the real thing!

I have a bad habit of reading too many reviews and comments about a film before I've seen it, mainly to get an idea about whether it's going to be worth a couple of hours of my time watching it. As a result, I am often slightly disappointed with much of what I see, as all the hype that I've read about a film kind of blows my expectations out of all proportion. I had a feeling this would be the case with Elem Klimov's 'Come and See', a film I'd read a lot about, particularly here on the IMDb. (Imagine my "excitement" when, having tried to see the film for nearly a year, I discovered it was to be released on DVD a week or two ago from today!) Well, I finally watched the film yesterday and... well, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer intensity and unflinching visceral horror of the atrocities that 'Come and See' invites us to... come and see. (Has anyone commented before on what a clever title that actually is...?) This is one of those films, like, say, 'Requiem For A Dream' or 'The Magdalene Sisters' (both of which, though great films, are simply not in the same league as Klimov's film), that one does not (obviously) so much enjoy as submit oneself to. By the end of such films we are left numbed and shell-shocked, wondering what we are supposed to do with the intense emotions that have been evoked within us. Yes, I felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath me; yes, what I saw in that film made my blood boil, my head hurt and my heart pound; and, yes, it showed me things I'd seen before but to a degree of intensity and detail that I had not experienced before. The point though, I guess, is that the role of cinema (and art in general) is not to offer answers or tell us what to think but to simply show us particular events and characters and allow us to come to our own decisions about what those things 'mean'. I'm rambling now, but I'll simply end by saying that 'Come and See' is, with its outstanding technical and artistic credentials aside, a film whose very title alone demands that it be seen. It is the work of a visionary, a cry of despair from the depths of hell, and an important reminder of humanity's capacity for inhumanity Go and see...

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.

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.