A gloomy path to realization

Rating: 9/10 (3 June 2012)

Very few films have left me feeling the impact days after the viewing. This is definitely one of them. The opening scenes of the boys searching in the deserted sand bank were very intriguing as it turns out to the viewer that they were searching for buried rifles from previous war times. The shock factor of this film is extremely high. If you are not okay with brutal violence in cinema, this is definitely not a film for you. While watching "Come and See" I felt a strong looming necrotic feeling increase as the film progressed. Once Florya and Glasha escape the forest bombings and retreat to a formerly familiar place that was once Florya's home, my gut was wrenched. The sounds of the buzzing flies among utter silence queues the unwelcome presence of death, which we do not see until they leave and Glasha glances behind a barn to see the villagers now as a pile of gruesome corpses. The moment when she notices but does not tell Florya made my head spin at the thought of family ties being severed forever in such a brutal and unfair manner. The sheer realistic manner of the film is enough to engulf viewers into feeling for Florya and his people as their existence is nearly decimated by the unrelenting hand of Nazi Germany. Once the film wound to an end I found myself reflecting on all the horrific imagery and pain that Florya witnessed on his resilient path to surviving such a brutal inhumane event. I couldn't help but feel the hatred he felt and yet I understood why he wanted to join the ranks and fight the good fight once he realized that war is no game. I feel that the pride and resilience Russians carried on their back during the Nazi atrocities is strong enough to charge a fight for in any human witnessing this breathtaking twister of a film.