Invitation to Hell

Rating: 10/10 (28 October 2017)

"Come and See" was on a list of the 10 most disturbing films you will ever see. It deserves to be.
Not that it is full of gratuitous gore; much of the horror is just glimpsed; dolls discarded on the floor of a deserted house; a pile of bodies briefly seen at a distance. Much of the horror simply plays out on the face of Florya (Aleksei Kravchenko), the teenage boy at the centre of the story.
I was stunned by the film, and there is not much to add to the many thoughtful IMDb reviews here; only a few comments on the technique of this film that makes it so compelling.
Critic Tim Lott wrote in 2009 that the film "makes Apocalypse Now look lightweight". It's an interesting association, because other critics pointed out similarities in the structure of the two films. Both are journeys where the central character experiences events that escalate until the true horror overwhelms them. Captain Willard's journey into the 'heart of darkness' is not that different to Florya's; both see things along the way that violate their senses.
A great deal of "Come and See" has a lyrical quality, especially Florya's brief stay in the forest with Glasha (Olga Mironova) - it's troubling that the girl who is taken by the Nazis at the end looks so much like her. However, all the while, there is that ominous, shapeless hum on the soundtrack. You sense everything is not well and soon you will see things you cannot unsee.
So much is told through those close up faces. But it is the face of Florya, aging before our eyes, which reaches into the soul.
Although the film was made a few years before the end of the Soviet regime, one can't detect too much of a political agenda in the way the story plays out - the events it portrays are well documented and disturbingly true. Maybe the retribution handed out to the captured Nazis at the end symbolises what happened in the war - what was done going East was repaid as the war headed West.
This masterful film doesn't really fit the definition of a standard war film; it is more of a cautionary tale. To paraphrase George Orwell a little, when people start to feel 'more equal than others', it opens the way for evil to happen.