Come and See (1985)
In times of adversity, stories of triumph, grief and inhumanity are not unusual. Humans are subjected to emotions which are extreme. “War” brings out the best and worst in humans. Come and See (1985) by Elem Klimov is one of the finest examples in world cinema which depicts war in its truest sense. It has no messages to offer to its audience. After watching Come and See, WW II themed cinematic masterpieces like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List seemed orchestrated. I had to give it much thought before using the term “orchestrated” because both Spielberg movies are still superlative for me. But the difference was quite apparent. Saving Private Ryan,Schindler’s List, Das Boot or for that matter Inglorious Basterds did have an undertone of bias. I never felt this “bias” in these films pre-Come and See. The other film which is bias-free has to be Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. But again Apocalypse Now deals at a psychological level. Apart from being bias free, both do not have much similarity considering the thematic disparity. Ironically, it was claimed that Come and See was a propaganda film by the Soviets. It was nowhere close to a propaganda film according to me. It showcases the less cinematically documented Soviet perspective in WW II (Byelorussian to be more precise).Come and See is unimaginably brutal in its depiction of desecrated human spirit. Violence does not seem over the top but still cannot be viewed with a straight face. The brutal scenes are not interspersed with pathos to provide a contrast or any form of hope. It was like infernal wrath etched on celluloid. There is despair and bleakness around with no respite, much like reality I presume. The level of madness escalates with every passing minute as the initial credits roll down.
The film pretty much revolves around Florya (Aleksei Kravchenko), a boy who intends to join the Partisan army and provide resistance to the Nazis led by Schutzstaffel (SS) who were moving towards the Eastern Bloc. With a backdrop of SS and Einsatzgruppen A (Nazi mobile killing squads) activities in Byelorussia, Come and See can easily be deciphered as a graph with an exponential curve. The curve denoting mental degradation of Florya with the passage of time (Time being the X axis).
The use of imagery is par excellence with some being so vivid that it leaves an indelible mark in the psyche and invariably becomes a part of episodic memory. These gory incidents are overlapped sequentially in the scenes. Plain and simply speaking, it is depressing.
Almost six years after its first use, Steadicam was used extensively to bring the audience closer to the action, may be to provide a third person perspective. The film did not shock me but made me think harder umpteenth time as to why humans are/were diabolical in times of war. The highlight of the film is high on metaphor. This particular scene shows Florya shooting at a portrait of Hitler lying on a puddle of mud. What follow that shot are archival footages of times of Nazi Germany in a rewind. It rewinds to a point where a snapshot of infant Hitler and his mother is shown. Florya stops himself at that point and regroups with the Partisan army which passes by. Oleg Yanchenko’s BGM manages ably to match the visual madness aurally. The end of the movie does not indicate the end of Florya’s despicable condition. But it does signal the end of his boyhood.
Tags: 1985, Come and See, Elem Klimov, Steadicam, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
a movie with gr8 photography..must see
Seems like a good movie. Regarding bias in Schindlers List and SPR, well WW2 movies from Hollywood are generally favorable to the Allies, i guess its because they won the war, so generally tend to overlook the more unpleasant side. Vietnam war being the one they lost, movies dealing with that subject are more introspective and not too biased.
Ratnakar..you should watch it at the first chance you get.Come and See does not make anyone cry at all..there are no touchy moments.There are moments which are harsher than another other similar genre movie.But Come and See stands out because..its merely feel like a depiction of a time interval of Florya’s life and life goes on again..it is at microscopic level.
yeh sourav, this film is such a powerful and haunting experience.
i remember the first time i saw it in NFAI, Pune. i was seated in the 5th row. right near the huge screen. and i was blown away in that darkness. images kept on coming back later. you so rightly mentioned that there is no respite from despair and bleakness. almost to the level of choking. and what a performance by the boy. incredible.
and of course, the end. beautiful.
while i am typing flashes of all those terrible/terrific moments are passing.
i am yet to see a war film more chillingly and hauntingly powerful than this.
Initially I found the movie quite strange..may be the acting styles were not affected.Florya’s performance keeps getting better with every scene.i wish I could watch it in a big screen.
even i was getting uneasy in my first viewing. in fact in that viewing i was left more numb than anything else. its the second encounter that helped me figure out a litter better as to what it is doing to me. with florya also that second time only, i realised the impact of his degradation in the passage of the film. sometimes i still wonder why he did not shoot at the infant hitler.
Well,he does not shoot at infant hitler because I believe he still reeling under the trauma after what he witnessed in the villages..how the houses were burnt and victims.He does not want to be like the SS/Nazi.On the other hand,he could have easily shot infant hitler metaphorically and killed him at inception before the menace could spawn into what it is in history books.
i also think so. so i felt it was quite a masterly touch by klimov to not shoot at the infant. florya, despite having lost his childhood and innocence in such a brutal fashion still throws the gun away. and as you mentioned, after this his life would have went on again. who knows, where and how.
klimov’s anger sows through the film. he metaphorically could have killed hitler but still he restrains and ends it the way he has ended.
Thats a valid point you made about Klimov’s anger.
yet 2 see this one…but 2day I say “The Ascent” made by Klimov’s wife Larisa Sheptiko…another lassic soviet WWII drama that works at a psyhologial level…
errata…2day I saw…
Oh I was checking about “The Ascent”..will watch it.Thanks