The Reel Review
A Belarusian teenager endures the horrors of Nazi German occupation in this bleak World War II war epic from Russian filmmaker Elem Klimov. Klimov wrote the screenplay for this 1985 film with Ales Adamovich, partly based on Adamovich’s own life as a child soldier fighting Nazis alongside Belarusian resistance fighters in his 1971 novel “Khatyn.”
Told entirely through the eyes of young Flyora, Come and See is one of the most harrowing war movies ever made – a blend of graphic, in-your-face realism and haunting, nightmarish fever dream surrealism. Almost everything detailed in this film actually happened, and frankly, it is a difficult watch as we see young Flyora, initially enamored with the idea of war, join the resistance despite the protests of his mother. Over the course of the next nine months, he rapidly ages, witnessing countless atrocities. The film culminates in a barbaric, hallucinatory nightmare of dehumanizing mass murder.
With an appropriately bleak score juxtaposed against Mozart, Aleksey Kravchenko, in his acting debut, is incredible, capturing the psychological trauma of a young boy forever scarred by the horrors of war. This one will stay with you.
REEL FACTS
• Come and See, its title taken from a passage in The Bible’s Book of Revelations, is generally regarded as one of the best anti-war movies ever made. In 2017, it was restored by Karen Shaknazarov and shown again at theaters across Europe.
• Co-writer/director Elem Klimov filmed Come and See in chronological order in present day Belarus using live ammunition and a cast of acting novices to create more authenticity. Klimov paid for Aleksey Kravchenko to meet with a hypnotist during filming in an effort to prevent PTSD. Klimov died in 2003 at the age of 70, six weeks after slipping into a coma. Come and See was his final film. After a 15 year break, Kravchenko resumed his acting career in 2000.
• Nazis killed an estimated 2 million people in Belarussia (present day Belarus), a fourth of the population, during their three-year occupation during WWII. Major cities like Minsk and Vitebsk lost 80% of their buildings and city infrastructure.
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