When all is lost...

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2011)

It is the year 1943 in Soviet Russia where war against the Nazi-Germany is at its most brutal. The protagonist, young boy name Fljora, is eager to take part in "The Great Patriotic War" to fight with the partisans against Nazis. Fljora, naïve and inexperienced in life, thinks he is going on a great adventure, but soon he realizes he has made the biggest mistake of his life. Fljora has gone on a journey to the darkest corners of the human mind and into a living hell. That also marks the end of his childhood.
Elem Klimov's masterpiece Come and See is an absolute anti-war film. There is no sign of the glamour of war that we are so used to seeing in Hollywood films – this is war as it really is. Klimov shows us the worst of humanity and it isn't a pretty sight. Some of the images shown to us are literally so penetrating and horrifying that they will likely be imprinted on our minds forever. Klimov attacks all our senses: you can feel it, hear it, see it, sometimes smell it, and almost even touch it. Largely this is due to the spectacular formalist soundtrack that is so impeccably constructed - the viewer is being made to hear exactly what Fljora hears. The intensity of these sounds heightens all other senses so much so that you almost forget you are watching the movie in the comfort of your own living room.
The most stagnating and unforgettable scene in the movie is the burning of a barn in a little village – with the villagers inside it. The Nazis show no remorse - they laugh at it. At this point, after losing his family and having already witnessed too much death, Fljora, who also witnessed the burning of the barn, has become a ghost of himself. The boy in the beginning is no more and we can visibly see how much he has aged – not in years, but in mind. Towards the end of the movie, Fljora is nothing but a frail human body. His mind is lost to cruelties and he is beyond salvation: the future, if there is one for him, is dictated for him already – all hope is lost.
Come And See deserves all the praise it has gotten since its release in 1985 and it can be considered one of the most important war films ever. For it says that there is nothing admirable, understandable and exciting about war. War takes away the humanity of people and in the midst of all it all, we forget who were are. People become savages who do unspeakable things in the name of ideologies. There is no room for love in war.