Come and See

Rating: 10/10 (11 February 2011)

I am a sucker for good war movies. In other words, I am a sucker for war movies that do not star Nicolas Cage, or sometimes, Mel Gibson. I find this genre fascinating when I feel that the experience of war is accurately depicted with no overzealous glorification. Elem Klimov's Come and See adheres to that particular condition.
Come and See feels real because of the hardships the protagonist, Florya, must endure throughout the film. Florya is found trudging his way through swamps and dodging bullets. Unlike an American film, Come and See stays true to reality in that it is very violent towards the adolescent protagonist. This element of the film serves to remind the audience of the reality that war knows no age.
There is no glorification here. The movie serves as a reminder to what war really is. In this film, one can come and see that war is merely a undertaking of survival, not a game of planting a flag into the soil and declaring a nation conquered.