What Real Hardship Is...

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2012)

"Come and See" is an astounding film that transfixes you into silence. Set in the Soviet Union during WWII, it tosses aside the common frivolous stylizations of war dramas, and instead paints a raw picture of a population's dying morale. The transitions in the film are shockingly stark, especially with the trials and tribulations Flyora suffers throughout the film. Living in a simple and quaint village, he has a good life but is restless and itching to get out of an unadventurous environment. Naïve but full of vigor, he joins the army in the hopes of joining a camaraderie. What he finds instead, is more than he bargained for. As the atrocities unfold, it's shocking to see his appearance change from a vibrant albeit immature boy of 15, to a terrorized and insipid war victim who looks aged well beyond his years.
The film also haunts with it's looming calamities by quick second-flashing imagery; with a relentless swarm of flies occupying the house where Flyora and Glasha are consuming a eerily still-warm meal, the young teenagers -oblivious and uncorrupted yet by the horrors of war- wonder where the village people have inexplicably vanished to. As fear and the nefarious truth takes hold of them, all they can do is simply run from it, with Dasha catching a menacing glimpse of death piled against the house. All it takes is just those few seconds in an inexplicit form to imprint a lasting and sickening image of brutality. When Flyora is led to a village's famished survivors, he is so overcome by the occupation's aftermath that he buries his head in the marsh, trying to block out the horrors he's experiencing. It's easy to feel the anguish that's taking a hold of him, as it finally permeates through his emotions.
The burning barn is an another powerful scene, when the Nazis depravity is fully exposed as they hastily round up the country town's people like cattle and confine them to their death. The target of children combined with one Nazi carelessly throwing a child back into the barn as if an inanimate object, is a primitive act overshadowed by shamelessness. Most importantly, the film does not sugarcoat and lingers with you long after you've seen it.