childhood stripped away

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2008)

Come and See, directed by Elem Klimov was one of the most depressing films I have ever watched and a must see for anyone thinking war is the answer. It was commissioned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the victory of the Soviets over Germany during WWII. It is amazingly done as it assaults all of your senses and leaves you feeling angry, ashamed and depressed.
You can see the fear in and all around Florya, the boy who was recruited for the war, to fight alongside the Soviets against Germany. You hear the intensity of the bombs exploding next to Florya and understand why he suffers loss of hearing. You taste the grit in his mouth when he stumbles and falls into the mud and feel the cold seep through his bones as he and Glasha maneuver through the swamp. You smell the stench of the burning acid and flesh in the air when the Germans burn the captives and your heart breaks for the Mother, whose child is tossed back into the building and she is then brutally raped. Only at the end do you feel a little sense of justice when Florya shoots the picture of Hitler.
As the film plays, the feeling of angry surfaces just for the mere fact of the injustice of war and sending children to fight as men and women for the sack of survival. The shame of living in a country, the United States, that clams to welcome and accept all to the land of "equal" opportunity and freedom, while we go (no better than those before us) to other countries and try to impose our democracy on them, killing innocent people as we go. When the film comes to a close you are left depressed at seeing this once fun loving boy, aged and reduced to a trance like state in a matter of a short time, knowing his childhood has been stripped away and is gone forever.