Come and see... the horsemen of the apocalypse

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2013)

The horror first rears its ugly head only in the corner of an eye in Elem Klimov's shocking WW II masterpiece. Almost as if it isn't real, just an illusion, a dark thought, maybe an omen, but nothing more - how could years and years of family and village life be torn away in the maelstrom of one disturbing instance? This particular shot lasts only a moment, just one character observes the irrevocable truth and there are no words to describe it. By not talking about it maybe it will all be muted, made untrue forever - for that one person and for everyone. But the brutal war reality that strikes a young Belorussian boy and his girlfriend doesn't stop at that, it is merely beginning...
"Come and see", a passage from the "Book of Revelations", is indeed an apt title for a film that makes it clear that the end of the world as we know it has come upon us: Welcome to the theater of war, to the shocking and unremitting images of the horsemen of the apocalypse sweeping over Belarus as if there is no tomorrow. "If we show the brutal truth, people won't see the film," Klimov warned his writer Ales Adamovich, but got countered with: "This is something we must leave after us. As evidence of war, and as a plea for peace." Klimov himself didn't make another film after this one. He said it all here. Right. As this is not a film about soldiers fighting bravely and earning their medals, a tragic story with an optional melancholic undertone to it that makes you sigh and move on. This picture is about the innocent victims, the shameless atrocities committed to them, the dilemma of the few survivors who are forced to fight for their mere existence. This is the unvarnished documentation of a nightmare, shot in earthy tones between beautiful idyll and the grisly aesthetics of war. It is merciless, haunting, traumatizing, not to be forgotten. With non-professionals in the lead Klimov uses close-ups upon close-ups to get in their eyes, the mirrors of their souls, where unparalleled devastation lingers. Come and see the raw cataclysm of a doomed generation living not too long ago, back then when the unspeakable happened, still present in the corner of your eye. Be prepared.