And just to make sure theres no doubt about why this particular army of murderous soldiers commits the actions it does in the film (as if it could hypothetically be some hideous anomaly), the Obersturmfhrer bluntly evokes Nazi ideology (even after being captured, no less), confidently stating that the Byelorussian partisans are members of an inferior race that has no right to exist. Flyora is taken to the village of Perekhody, where they hurriedly discuss a fake identity for him, while the SS unit, accompanied by collaborators from the Russian Liberation Army and Schutzmannschaft Batallion 118, surround and occupy the village. Additionally, it has no big stars or familiar faces to speak of, and no sweeping score characteristic of your typical Hollywood spectacle. The website's critics consensus reads, "As effectively anti-war as movies can be, Come and See is a harrowing odyssey through the worst that humanity is capable of, directed with bravura intensity by Elem Klimov. Many of the uniforms seen in the film are not costumes, but genuine originals from the war itself. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. The film mixes hyper-realism and surrealism to portray the crimes committed against so many human beings during World War II, and although it's definitely hard to watch, many believe it's worth it. Claiming the boy is his son, Saul makes it his mission to save the body from cremation and give him a proper Jewish burial. "[43] Rita Kempley, of The Washington Post, wrote that "directing with an angry eloquence, [Klimov] taps into that hallucinatory nether world of blood and mud and escalating madness that Francis Ford Coppola found in Apocalypse Now. In the end, Mr. Kravchenko was able to concentrate so intensely that it seemed as if he had hypnotized himself for the role"[14][18] with some autogenic training.
Will be on sale soon @Criterion", "Become A War Films Expert In Ten Easy Movies", "Come and See [1985]: A Chilling and Indelible Reminder of Nazi Carnage", "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners", Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "14th Moscow International Film Festival - Fipresci", Spotted Dog Running at the Edge of the Sea, Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Come_and_See&oldid=1098766513, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles containing Belarusian-language text, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2021, Articles with failed verification from October 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Venice Classics Award for Best Restored Film, Yevgeny Tilicheyev as Gezhel the Soviet collaborator, Viktors Lorents as Walter Stein the German commander, Jri Lumiste as the fanatical German officer, This page was last edited on 17 July 2022, at 11:51. The film's plot focuses on the Nazi German occupation of Belarus, and the events as witnessed by a young Belarusian partisan teenager named Flyora, whoagainst his mother's wishesjoins the Belarusian resistance movement, and thereafter depicts the Nazi atrocities and human suffering inflicted upon the Eastern European villages' populace. A beautiful German woman listens to opera music and eats lobster in her car while the village burns around her (perhaps a visual mockery of supposed Aryan civility). Though the film stays inherently committed to its realistic portrayal of the war, the occasional artistic flourishes Klimov includes work without robbing the film of its verisimilitude. [5] At the same time "the mise-en-scne is fragmentary and disjointed: there are discontinuities between shots as characters appear in close up and then disappear off camera." Come and See (Russian: , Idi i smotri; Belarusian: , Idzi i hliadzi) is a 1985 Soviet anti-war film directed by Elem Klimov and starring Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova. In a 1986 interview, Klimov stated that the film was intended to be anti-war and anti-fascist, but not anti-German.
The stylistic choices Klimov makes here separates the film from any other in the genre, none more so than his use of surrealism. Furthering that point, after herding the villagers into a wooden church and setting it on fire with grenades and flamethrowers, the Nazis indiscriminately open fire on the building, an action thats not just overkill, but unnecessary to the point of absurdity. [58] The film is generally considered one of the greatest anti-war movies ever made, and one with the most historically accurate depictions of the crimes on the Eastern Front. A title card informs: "628 Belorussian villages were destroyed, along with all their inhabitants. "[48] In the same publication in 2009, Elliott Stein described Come and See as "a startling mixture of lyrical poeticism and expressionist nightmare. As evidence of war, and as a plea for peace. The unmistakable voice of Adolf Hitler then fills the soundtrack, transitioning into the infamous first verse of the Deutschlandlied (the national anthem of the Third Reich) as the opening credits begin. [8] Alongside this, the death of his wife Larisa Shepitko, also a filmmaker, in 1979 forced him to first complete the work she began on what was to be her next film, Farewell; it would finally be released in 1983. From the opening scene, the film announces without ambiguity the nature and identity of the enemy. While some of the captured men including the commander and main collaborator plead for their lives and deflect blame, a young fanatical officer, an Obersturmfhrer, is unapologetic and vows they will carry out their genocidal mission. Its an undeniably well-made movie, featuring unmistakably high production values, but not a particularly beautiful one (not that it was trying to be). I wanted to find a simple boy fourteen years of age. Flyora becomes a low-rank militiaman and is ordered to perform menial tasks. After recovering his jacket and rifle, Flyora comes across the young girl in a fugue state, her legs and face covered in blood after having been gang-raped and brutalized by the soldiers. Denying that his family is dead, Flyora believes that they are hiding on a nearby island across a bog. Many of them were still alive then, and Belorussians managed to record some of their memories onto film. [46], The film has since been widely acclaimed in the 21st century. [33][34][35], In 2001 the film was released on DVD in the United States by Kino Lorber. Later, Floryas displaced fellow villagers, perhaps seeking a tangible object on which they can unload their collective outrage, construct a grotesque effigy of the Nazi leader. His harrowing but sadly all-too plausible experiences make up the rest of the film, resulting in one of the most shocking and powerful chronicles of war and its effects in all of cinema. Klimov co-wrote the screenplay with Ales Adamovich, who fought with the Belarusian partisans as a teenager. (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.) Flyora returns to the village and finds that his fellow partisans have captured eleven of the Germans and their collaborators, including the commander, an SS-Sturmbannfhrer. It has since come to be considered one of the greatest films of all time.[10]. I kept a most severe diet, and after the filming was over I returned to school not only thin, but grey-haired. Taste of Cinema 2019. The two become hysterical after wading through the bog, where Glasha then screams at Flyora that his family is actually dead in the village; resulting in the latter attempting to drown her. Of course, it would still indeed be exceptional, but probably not as disquieting, most likely. Flyora sees the village elder, badly burnt by the Germans, who tells him that he witnessed his family's execution and that he should not have dug up the rifles. "[18], Come and See was selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 58th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
[5][10][11] The management had to be given something topical. A fantasy, I believe, and not Florya's, who has probably never heard such music. Son of Saul left critics in awe of its harrowing depiction of the Holocaust, with critics like Philip Kemp of Sight & Soundsaying that while "it has sometimes been suggested that there's little more to be said, in cinematic terms, about the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, [] the single-minded power and visceral immediacy of [director Lszl] Nemes' achievement, rightly acclaimed and awarded, prove otherwise.". [It] doesn't have any professional actors. I must not describe the famous sequence at the end. But he replied: "Let them not watch it, then. Son of Saul takes place over a day and a half after Saul sees a boy survive the gas chambers, only to be suffocated by a Nazi. And the most frightening and shameful thing for me is that this film will be seen by my children and grandchildren". [15] "I realized I had to inject him with content which he did not possess," "This is an age when a boy does not know what true hatred is, what true love is." By being explicit about who the film is about, Klimov is better able to make his point about war in general (as any true artist knows, tragedy is almost always more moving when it focuses on the small to make a point about the large, rather than trying to be too thorough and comprehensive). [15], To create the maximum sense of immediacy, realism, hyperrealism, and surrealism operate in equal measure,[19] Klimov and his cameraman Rodionov employed naturalistic colors, widescreen and lots of Steadicam shots; the film is full of extreme close-ups of faces, does not flinch from the unpleasant details of burnt flesh and bloodied corpses, and the guns were often loaded with live ammunition as opposed to blanks. The strangeness of the scene establishes the consistently ominous and nightmarish tone that Klimov maintains for the duration of the film. A German officer points a gun to Flyora's head to pose for a picture before leaving him to slump to the ground as the soldiers leave. Still, the frequency of these odd occurrences make it seem as though Klimov decided to shoot his war movie as if it were a horror movie, which brings us to the next point. ", "Come and See [Russian: Idi i smotri] (1985) (pp. I will testify: everything that is told in this film is the truth. We can accept it if we want, but it changes nothing. The film tells the story of a man named Saul Auslnder (Gza Rhrig), a prisoner at a concentration camp who is forced to be a Sonderkommando, or one of the people made to help dispose of the bodies of gas chamber victims a horrific reality for many people during World War II. But they don't know about Belorussia. "[9] Flyora rushes to rejoin his comrades, and they march through the birch woods as snow blankets the ground. A more intriguing thought would be whether or not the film would still be great if it werent based on true events, though reality may render this a moot point. Flyora is forced to watch as several Molotov cocktails and grenades are thrown onto and within the church before it is further set ablaze with a flamethrower as other soldiers shoot into the building. As he does so, a montage of clips from Hitler's life play in reverse, but when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother's lap, Flyora stops shooting and cries. A product of the glasnost era, Come and See is far from a patriotic memorial of Russia's hard-won victory. [64], The two photos (Klara; left, and Adolf; right) merged by Klimov to create the picture that Flyora stops shooting at, The same biblical quote is at the center of the film, Best Foreign Language Film at the 58th Academy Awards, List of Soviet submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "Atrocity exhibition: is Come and See Russia's greatest ever war film? In addition to filming on location in Belarus, in chronological order, and with dialogue spoken in authentic Belarusian, Russian, and German, live ammunition was used in several scenes instead of blanks, sometimes missing the actors by mere inches. The other movie suggested on Reddit as required viewing afterSchindler's Listis the Soviet anti-war film called Come and See, which was released in 1985. Filmed in long takes that look as uncomfortable to have filmed as they are to watch, the audio in the scene consists mostly of unseen bird chirps and a low-frequency whir. This is something we must leave after us. I will never forget the face and eyes of one peasant, and his quiet recollection about how his whole village had been herded into a church, and how just before they were about to be burned, an officer gave them the offer: "Whoever has no children can leave". In a Reddit thread on the site's Movies subreddit, a user who goes by the handle u/Engineering_123 made an appreciative post about Schindler's List, calling it "one of the most traumatic movies [they've] ever seen" as well as "a masterpiece." In 1943, two Belarusian boys dig in a sand-filled trench looking for abandoned rifles in order to join the Soviet partisan forces. [45], According to Klimov, the film was so shocking for audiences, however, that ambulances were sometimes called in to take away particularly impressionable viewers, both in the Soviet Union and abroad. Kosach makes the collaborator douse the Germans with a can of petrol brought there by Flyora, but the disgusted crowd shoots them all before they can be set on fire. The reason isnt immediately clear, though we soon find out theyre looking for rifles accompanying the bodies of soldiers buried in shallow graves. Most impressively, no professional trained actors were used, making the compelling performances and Klimovs directing of them all the more praiseworthy. Privacy Policy (http://www.tasteofcinema.com/privacy-notice-and-cookies/) Theme by, Taste of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists, 10 Reasons Why Come and See Is The Best War Movie Ever Made, Taste of Cinema Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists, The 30 Best Horror Films Of The 21st Century. In 2001 Daneet Steffens of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Klimov alternates the horrors of war with occasional fairy tale-like images; together they imbue the film with an unapologetically disturbing quality that persists long after the credits roll. WhileSchindler's List is known for its honest portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust within this very real story of one man's heroism, there are manyotherfilms with similar stories of real-life horrors that are also consideredrequired viewing. Though there are multiple examples of unexpected and upsetting details throughout, such as the moment early on when Florya unintentionally tramples on a nest full of bird eggs, the most jarring surrealistic moments are reserved for the films most horrifying sequence, in which an entire village is massacred by the Nazis. The director has elicited an excellent performance from his central actor Kravchenko". The original Belarusian and Russian titles of the film derives from Chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation, where in the first, third, fifth, and seventh verse is written " "[27] (English: "Come and see", Greek: , Erchou kai ide)[28] in Belarusian (and " " in Russian) as an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Hungarian film was released to critical acclaim in 2015, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and winning the Grand Prix, before going on to win a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award. It is like an ironic taunt. [citation needed] During the scene where Glasha dances, the background music is some fragments of Mary Dixon's song from Grigori Aleksandrov's 1936 film Circus. You will see how. [29][30] Chapter 6, verses 78 have been cited as being particularly relevant to the film: And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, "Come and see!" The plot is simple: In 1943, a young teenage boy in the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (modern-day Belarus) sets out to join the partisans in the fight against the Nazis during the occupation. Played by newcomer Aleksei Kravchenko, who was only fourteen when the film was made, Florya becomes the surrogate witness through which the audience experiences the brutality of war. The piece has been used in countless other movies and TV shows, but Klimov absolutely earns the right to employ it here, given all thats preceded it. And I decided to make a film about this tragedy. Its impossible to be unaffected by watching the ongoing emotional scarring of a person, especially one so young, and Kravchenko lives up the task by delivering a completely convincing performance. In the film, Ralph Fiennes plays Amon Goeth, who was the commandant of the Paszw concentration camp. All rights reserved. While hardly a unique message for a war movie, the striking and totally believable transformation Florya undergoes over the course of the film is haunting and unforgettable. This unorthodox approach succeeds magnificently in emphasizing the intensity onscreen, such as in the practically unbearable scene in which Florya and a young girl hes befriended named Glasha wade across a quicksand-like bog in their search for fellow survivors. Instead of a traditional score, a cacophonous mix of animal noises, droning hums, occasional excerpts of classical music, and of course, the expected terrible sounds of war are used. The bit of actual death-camp corpse footage that Klimov uses is doubly disturbing in that it retrospectively diminishes the care with which he orchestrates the town's destruction. The extreme close-ups of actors staring into camera is a recurring motif." They are soon met by Rubezh, a partisan fighter, who takes them to a large group of villagers who have fled the Germans. Instead, it's a chilling reminder of that victory's terrible costs. There are few images more indelible than the sight of young Aleksei Kravchenko's fear-petrified expression. [citation needed], At the end of the film, the partisans walk through a winter woodland to the sound of Mozart's Lacrimosa before the camera tilts towards the sky and the ending credits appear. Much of the infamous massacre scene goes un-scored, the sounds of screaming villagers, barking dogs, gunfire, and Nazi laughter being more than sufficient to supplement the visuals. Come and See received generally positive critical reception upon release, and received the FIPRESCI prize at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. And even though elements such as subjective sound and non-diegetic music are utilized, the uncompromising you-are-there feel of the film is never abandoned. [42][32], Come and See grossed $71,909 in the United States and Canada,[32][40] and $20.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of nearly $21 million,[3] plus over $1.1 million with home video sales. As the partisans leave, Flyora notices a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in a puddle and proceeds to shoot it numerous times. Finally, the films last scene fittingly uses one of the saddest and most mournful pieces of music ever written: the Lacrimosa from Mozarts Requiem. But, as they wrote, "whereas Schindler's List is traumatic for what it showed, Son of Saul is equally traumatic for what it leaves to the viewer's imagination." User u/xNinjahz on Reddit called the film "relentless," saying that the horror "just doesn't stop, things get worse and worse and worse." [16], The film was shot in chronological order over a period of nine months. [13] Eventually in 1984, Klimov was able to start filming without having compromised to any censorship at all. In an early scene of a German bombing raid, Florya temporarily goes deaf. As they run from the village in the direction of the bogland, Glasha glances across her shoulder, seeing a pile of executed villagers' bodies stacked behind a house, but does not alert Flyora. Rubezh takes Flyora and two other men to find food at a nearby warehouse, only to find it being guarded by German troops. This important bit of dialogue proves that his and his mens actions directly stem from official orders. It is unutterably depressing, because history can never undo itself, and is with us forever. During their retreat, the group unknowingly wanders through a minefield resulting in the deaths of the two companions.
Their village elder warns them not to dig up the weapons as it would arouse the suspicions of the occupying Germans.
Will be on sale soon @Criterion", "Become A War Films Expert In Ten Easy Movies", "Come and See [1985]: A Chilling and Indelible Reminder of Nazi Carnage", "The 58th Academy Awards (1986) Nominees and Winners", Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "14th Moscow International Film Festival - Fipresci", Spotted Dog Running at the Edge of the Sea, Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Come_and_See&oldid=1098766513, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles containing Belarusian-language text, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2021, Articles with failed verification from October 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Venice Classics Award for Best Restored Film, Yevgeny Tilicheyev as Gezhel the Soviet collaborator, Viktors Lorents as Walter Stein the German commander, Jri Lumiste as the fanatical German officer, This page was last edited on 17 July 2022, at 11:51. The film's plot focuses on the Nazi German occupation of Belarus, and the events as witnessed by a young Belarusian partisan teenager named Flyora, whoagainst his mother's wishesjoins the Belarusian resistance movement, and thereafter depicts the Nazi atrocities and human suffering inflicted upon the Eastern European villages' populace. A beautiful German woman listens to opera music and eats lobster in her car while the village burns around her (perhaps a visual mockery of supposed Aryan civility). Though the film stays inherently committed to its realistic portrayal of the war, the occasional artistic flourishes Klimov includes work without robbing the film of its verisimilitude. [5] At the same time "the mise-en-scne is fragmentary and disjointed: there are discontinuities between shots as characters appear in close up and then disappear off camera." Come and See (Russian: , Idi i smotri; Belarusian: , Idzi i hliadzi) is a 1985 Soviet anti-war film directed by Elem Klimov and starring Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova. In a 1986 interview, Klimov stated that the film was intended to be anti-war and anti-fascist, but not anti-German.
The stylistic choices Klimov makes here separates the film from any other in the genre, none more so than his use of surrealism. Furthering that point, after herding the villagers into a wooden church and setting it on fire with grenades and flamethrowers, the Nazis indiscriminately open fire on the building, an action thats not just overkill, but unnecessary to the point of absurdity. [58] The film is generally considered one of the greatest anti-war movies ever made, and one with the most historically accurate depictions of the crimes on the Eastern Front. A title card informs: "628 Belorussian villages were destroyed, along with all their inhabitants. "[48] In the same publication in 2009, Elliott Stein described Come and See as "a startling mixture of lyrical poeticism and expressionist nightmare. As evidence of war, and as a plea for peace. The unmistakable voice of Adolf Hitler then fills the soundtrack, transitioning into the infamous first verse of the Deutschlandlied (the national anthem of the Third Reich) as the opening credits begin. [8] Alongside this, the death of his wife Larisa Shepitko, also a filmmaker, in 1979 forced him to first complete the work she began on what was to be her next film, Farewell; it would finally be released in 1983. From the opening scene, the film announces without ambiguity the nature and identity of the enemy. While some of the captured men including the commander and main collaborator plead for their lives and deflect blame, a young fanatical officer, an Obersturmfhrer, is unapologetic and vows they will carry out their genocidal mission. Its an undeniably well-made movie, featuring unmistakably high production values, but not a particularly beautiful one (not that it was trying to be). I wanted to find a simple boy fourteen years of age. Flyora becomes a low-rank militiaman and is ordered to perform menial tasks. After recovering his jacket and rifle, Flyora comes across the young girl in a fugue state, her legs and face covered in blood after having been gang-raped and brutalized by the soldiers. Denying that his family is dead, Flyora believes that they are hiding on a nearby island across a bog. Many of them were still alive then, and Belorussians managed to record some of their memories onto film. [46], The film has since been widely acclaimed in the 21st century. [33][34][35], In 2001 the film was released on DVD in the United States by Kino Lorber. Later, Floryas displaced fellow villagers, perhaps seeking a tangible object on which they can unload their collective outrage, construct a grotesque effigy of the Nazi leader. His harrowing but sadly all-too plausible experiences make up the rest of the film, resulting in one of the most shocking and powerful chronicles of war and its effects in all of cinema. Klimov co-wrote the screenplay with Ales Adamovich, who fought with the Belarusian partisans as a teenager. (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.) Flyora returns to the village and finds that his fellow partisans have captured eleven of the Germans and their collaborators, including the commander, an SS-Sturmbannfhrer. It has since come to be considered one of the greatest films of all time.[10]. I kept a most severe diet, and after the filming was over I returned to school not only thin, but grey-haired. Taste of Cinema 2019. The two become hysterical after wading through the bog, where Glasha then screams at Flyora that his family is actually dead in the village; resulting in the latter attempting to drown her. Of course, it would still indeed be exceptional, but probably not as disquieting, most likely. Flyora sees the village elder, badly burnt by the Germans, who tells him that he witnessed his family's execution and that he should not have dug up the rifles. "[18], Come and See was selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 58th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
[5][10][11] The management had to be given something topical. A fantasy, I believe, and not Florya's, who has probably never heard such music. Son of Saul left critics in awe of its harrowing depiction of the Holocaust, with critics like Philip Kemp of Sight & Soundsaying that while "it has sometimes been suggested that there's little more to be said, in cinematic terms, about the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, [] the single-minded power and visceral immediacy of [director Lszl] Nemes' achievement, rightly acclaimed and awarded, prove otherwise.". [It] doesn't have any professional actors. I must not describe the famous sequence at the end. But he replied: "Let them not watch it, then. Son of Saul takes place over a day and a half after Saul sees a boy survive the gas chambers, only to be suffocated by a Nazi. And the most frightening and shameful thing for me is that this film will be seen by my children and grandchildren". [15] "I realized I had to inject him with content which he did not possess," "This is an age when a boy does not know what true hatred is, what true love is." By being explicit about who the film is about, Klimov is better able to make his point about war in general (as any true artist knows, tragedy is almost always more moving when it focuses on the small to make a point about the large, rather than trying to be too thorough and comprehensive). [15], To create the maximum sense of immediacy, realism, hyperrealism, and surrealism operate in equal measure,[19] Klimov and his cameraman Rodionov employed naturalistic colors, widescreen and lots of Steadicam shots; the film is full of extreme close-ups of faces, does not flinch from the unpleasant details of burnt flesh and bloodied corpses, and the guns were often loaded with live ammunition as opposed to blanks. The strangeness of the scene establishes the consistently ominous and nightmarish tone that Klimov maintains for the duration of the film. A German officer points a gun to Flyora's head to pose for a picture before leaving him to slump to the ground as the soldiers leave. Still, the frequency of these odd occurrences make it seem as though Klimov decided to shoot his war movie as if it were a horror movie, which brings us to the next point. ", "Come and See [Russian: Idi i smotri] (1985) (pp. I will testify: everything that is told in this film is the truth. We can accept it if we want, but it changes nothing. The film tells the story of a man named Saul Auslnder (Gza Rhrig), a prisoner at a concentration camp who is forced to be a Sonderkommando, or one of the people made to help dispose of the bodies of gas chamber victims a horrific reality for many people during World War II. But they don't know about Belorussia. "[9] Flyora rushes to rejoin his comrades, and they march through the birch woods as snow blankets the ground. A more intriguing thought would be whether or not the film would still be great if it werent based on true events, though reality may render this a moot point. Flyora is forced to watch as several Molotov cocktails and grenades are thrown onto and within the church before it is further set ablaze with a flamethrower as other soldiers shoot into the building. As he does so, a montage of clips from Hitler's life play in reverse, but when Hitler is shown as a baby on his mother's lap, Flyora stops shooting and cries. A product of the glasnost era, Come and See is far from a patriotic memorial of Russia's hard-won victory. [64], The two photos (Klara; left, and Adolf; right) merged by Klimov to create the picture that Flyora stops shooting at, The same biblical quote is at the center of the film, Best Foreign Language Film at the 58th Academy Awards, List of Soviet submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "Atrocity exhibition: is Come and See Russia's greatest ever war film? In addition to filming on location in Belarus, in chronological order, and with dialogue spoken in authentic Belarusian, Russian, and German, live ammunition was used in several scenes instead of blanks, sometimes missing the actors by mere inches. The other movie suggested on Reddit as required viewing afterSchindler's Listis the Soviet anti-war film called Come and See, which was released in 1985. Filmed in long takes that look as uncomfortable to have filmed as they are to watch, the audio in the scene consists mostly of unseen bird chirps and a low-frequency whir. This is something we must leave after us. I will never forget the face and eyes of one peasant, and his quiet recollection about how his whole village had been herded into a church, and how just before they were about to be burned, an officer gave them the offer: "Whoever has no children can leave". In a Reddit thread on the site's Movies subreddit, a user who goes by the handle u/Engineering_123 made an appreciative post about Schindler's List, calling it "one of the most traumatic movies [they've] ever seen" as well as "a masterpiece." In 1943, two Belarusian boys dig in a sand-filled trench looking for abandoned rifles in order to join the Soviet partisan forces. [45], According to Klimov, the film was so shocking for audiences, however, that ambulances were sometimes called in to take away particularly impressionable viewers, both in the Soviet Union and abroad. Kosach makes the collaborator douse the Germans with a can of petrol brought there by Flyora, but the disgusted crowd shoots them all before they can be set on fire. The reason isnt immediately clear, though we soon find out theyre looking for rifles accompanying the bodies of soldiers buried in shallow graves. Most impressively, no professional trained actors were used, making the compelling performances and Klimovs directing of them all the more praiseworthy. Privacy Policy (http://www.tasteofcinema.com/privacy-notice-and-cookies/) Theme by, Taste of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists, 10 Reasons Why Come and See Is The Best War Movie Ever Made, Taste of Cinema Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists, The 30 Best Horror Films Of The 21st Century. In 2001 Daneet Steffens of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Klimov alternates the horrors of war with occasional fairy tale-like images; together they imbue the film with an unapologetically disturbing quality that persists long after the credits roll. WhileSchindler's List is known for its honest portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust within this very real story of one man's heroism, there are manyotherfilms with similar stories of real-life horrors that are also consideredrequired viewing. Though there are multiple examples of unexpected and upsetting details throughout, such as the moment early on when Florya unintentionally tramples on a nest full of bird eggs, the most jarring surrealistic moments are reserved for the films most horrifying sequence, in which an entire village is massacred by the Nazis. The director has elicited an excellent performance from his central actor Kravchenko". The original Belarusian and Russian titles of the film derives from Chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation, where in the first, third, fifth, and seventh verse is written " "[27] (English: "Come and see", Greek: , Erchou kai ide)[28] in Belarusian (and " " in Russian) as an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Hungarian film was released to critical acclaim in 2015, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and winning the Grand Prix, before going on to win a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award. It is like an ironic taunt. [citation needed] During the scene where Glasha dances, the background music is some fragments of Mary Dixon's song from Grigori Aleksandrov's 1936 film Circus. You will see how. [29][30] Chapter 6, verses 78 have been cited as being particularly relevant to the film: And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, "Come and see!" The plot is simple: In 1943, a young teenage boy in the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (modern-day Belarus) sets out to join the partisans in the fight against the Nazis during the occupation. Played by newcomer Aleksei Kravchenko, who was only fourteen when the film was made, Florya becomes the surrogate witness through which the audience experiences the brutality of war. The piece has been used in countless other movies and TV shows, but Klimov absolutely earns the right to employ it here, given all thats preceded it. And I decided to make a film about this tragedy. Its impossible to be unaffected by watching the ongoing emotional scarring of a person, especially one so young, and Kravchenko lives up the task by delivering a completely convincing performance. In the film, Ralph Fiennes plays Amon Goeth, who was the commandant of the Paszw concentration camp. All rights reserved. While hardly a unique message for a war movie, the striking and totally believable transformation Florya undergoes over the course of the film is haunting and unforgettable. This unorthodox approach succeeds magnificently in emphasizing the intensity onscreen, such as in the practically unbearable scene in which Florya and a young girl hes befriended named Glasha wade across a quicksand-like bog in their search for fellow survivors. Instead of a traditional score, a cacophonous mix of animal noises, droning hums, occasional excerpts of classical music, and of course, the expected terrible sounds of war are used. The bit of actual death-camp corpse footage that Klimov uses is doubly disturbing in that it retrospectively diminishes the care with which he orchestrates the town's destruction. The extreme close-ups of actors staring into camera is a recurring motif." They are soon met by Rubezh, a partisan fighter, who takes them to a large group of villagers who have fled the Germans. Instead, it's a chilling reminder of that victory's terrible costs. There are few images more indelible than the sight of young Aleksei Kravchenko's fear-petrified expression. [citation needed], At the end of the film, the partisans walk through a winter woodland to the sound of Mozart's Lacrimosa before the camera tilts towards the sky and the ending credits appear. Much of the infamous massacre scene goes un-scored, the sounds of screaming villagers, barking dogs, gunfire, and Nazi laughter being more than sufficient to supplement the visuals. Come and See received generally positive critical reception upon release, and received the FIPRESCI prize at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. And even though elements such as subjective sound and non-diegetic music are utilized, the uncompromising you-are-there feel of the film is never abandoned. [42][32], Come and See grossed $71,909 in the United States and Canada,[32][40] and $20.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of nearly $21 million,[3] plus over $1.1 million with home video sales. As the partisans leave, Flyora notices a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in a puddle and proceeds to shoot it numerous times. Finally, the films last scene fittingly uses one of the saddest and most mournful pieces of music ever written: the Lacrimosa from Mozarts Requiem. But, as they wrote, "whereas Schindler's List is traumatic for what it showed, Son of Saul is equally traumatic for what it leaves to the viewer's imagination." User u/xNinjahz on Reddit called the film "relentless," saying that the horror "just doesn't stop, things get worse and worse and worse." [16], The film was shot in chronological order over a period of nine months. [13] Eventually in 1984, Klimov was able to start filming without having compromised to any censorship at all. In an early scene of a German bombing raid, Florya temporarily goes deaf. As they run from the village in the direction of the bogland, Glasha glances across her shoulder, seeing a pile of executed villagers' bodies stacked behind a house, but does not alert Flyora. Rubezh takes Flyora and two other men to find food at a nearby warehouse, only to find it being guarded by German troops. This important bit of dialogue proves that his and his mens actions directly stem from official orders. It is unutterably depressing, because history can never undo itself, and is with us forever. During their retreat, the group unknowingly wanders through a minefield resulting in the deaths of the two companions.
Their village elder warns them not to dig up the weapons as it would arouse the suspicions of the occupying Germans.