Come and See

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2016)

"Come and See" is unbelievably powerful. No film has ever explored the horrors of war so relentlessly and realistically as this film, and I don't know if I'll ever watch it again, yet I think everyone should watch it once.
When a young boy finds an old rifle, he decides to join the war against Nazi Germany. He is as naive as any boy at his age, and much to his mother's dismay, he joins, not really knowing what to expect.
He is left behind by the army, because they know how young and foolish he is. He is left with a girl, who he comes to care about. They experience a terrifying and incredibly realistic looking (and sounding) bombing, seemingly out of no where, with only a glimpse of a plane beforehand to warn them. The boy remains hopeful that he can save her and find his family, and the boy and girl both begin to laugh and dance to distract themselves from the horror that they are in the midst of. Then they get back to the boys home.
The town seems abandoned. The boy goes into his house to find his sisters' dolls splayed out on the floor with bugs buzzing around them. He finds food in the oven and remains hopeful that they are just off somewhere else. The girl sees the dolls and is disturbed. The boy is terrified but comes back and continues to convince himself his family is just off somewhere.
Then we see them dead. All of them. Leaning against the back of the house. Only the girl does however, so the boy keeps running. He gets to a thick bog. He slowly treks along the bog. He struggles and struggles and struggles with the girl holding onto the back of him for what seemed like minutes, probably do to the long slow single shot it was filmed in. Then they arrive at the other end, and the boy must finally face the fact his parents are dead.
He blames himself for all of this, and as devastating as this is for him, he still clings desperately to his rifle. He is therefore brought along on a trip to get food and milk. He begins to laugh again. Harder than ever, trying to shield himself from the horrors of his situation. In another reminder of his reality, 2 of the three men he is with are killed by bombs (once again, with the menacing plane warning only seconds before). They continue however, and after stealing the cow successfully (in a long, long POV shot), the boy and the last remaining member have their last moment of joy together, drinking the milk from the cow, laughing, and forgetting about everything but that moment. Then more bombs hit, and more gunfire starts. From this point on, there is no laughing, and no joy left in the movie. Even after he finds out he is alone, he still clings to the cow as his last hope. Then the cow dies.
The boy finds a horse and a man, but is eventually captured by Nazis. This whole, next 45 minutes is comprised of almost exclusively long shots, unflinching lyrics staring at the absolute horror of the moment. Words cannot describe it. The boy survives, barely, but the final shot of the scene is worse than death with the boy face down in the dirt, empty, and practically dead inside, or wishing he was.
The boy is picked up by the resistance, and we get a disturbing shot of a woman with a white face, bloody lips, and bloody legs, showing the absolute destruction of any thing that was once peaceful or beautiful. The men almost burn the Nazis, but instead men jump in and shoot them last second, showing that they are better than them, even in their most vengeful moments. But this truly means nothing, as we see next. The boy finds a portrait of Adolph Hitler in a wet ditch. He shoots it over and over, as videos of what he has done are reversed, showing how badly he wants to take back what Hitler's done. Then there is a picture of a mother and child. He stops. He realizes no matter what they do at this point, they can never take back what Hitler has done, and that is the depressing and horrifying fact of the Holocaust. The boy may be alive, but, like his gun, he is broken, and always will be, and you can see it in his now deranged face.