Unforgettable snapshot of fascist war atrocities

Rating: 9/10 (17 August 2005)

Set in Nazi occupied Belorussia during WW2 "Come and See" tells the story of one boy who joins the Soviet partisans, of his mother's despairing appeals for him not to, of his whole family's death in the Nazi reprisals on his village and his struggle with hate, guilt and the extremities of mental stress in its wake. In an amazing, almost surreal, piece of cinema technique the effect of being deafened and shocked by an artillery barrage is portrayed in the soundtrack, muffled and indistinct noises emerging from moving mouths. Apart from this personal story this piece of late Soviet film-making attempts to capture a "typical" atrocity of those times in the fate of another village, and largely succeeds. It ranges from the black comedy which the Soviets found in the behavior of their oppressors, a German motorcycle rides through the village with a corpse with a sign on it warning of the fate of partisans; but no-one sees it because it's raining and everyone's indoors; through exacting military historical detail - a Focke Wulf "Owl" reconnaissance plane slowly tracking through the sky is the recurrent motif signifying German presence - down to collaboration and partisan atrocities in turn. It makes it's devastating comment in the final credits when it names how many hundred Belorussian villages suffered the same fate. A magnificent piece of realistic film-making about a repellent and compelling subject.