Come and See why this Movie Breaks the War Movie Rules

Rating: 10/10 (16 December 2007)

Come and See
Growing up watching war movies from Apocalypse Now to Black Hawk Down, I thought I knew what war movies are. Apparently, I was wrong. Come and See is not like those films. It does have soldiers, explosions, and people dying. However, Come and See doesn't have John Williams making you feel like storming the beaches of Normandy is somehow best expressed by French horn. What makes Come and See so interesting are 3 basic elements: 1. We experience war through the eyes of a teenager, 2. It doesn't follow a formulaic approach and 3. It's brutally real.
First of all, war movies are typically seen (in America) through the eyes of some brave (almost always white) man heading off to the glory of the war. Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor, Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan, Tom Sizemore in every major American war movie or TV Show since 1989 (including the two aforementioned). In Come and See, our protagonist Florya is a teenager who eagerly jumps at the chance to fight with the Russians against the Nazi invasion. His youth and innocence at the beginning is just like the audiences. He believes he knows what war looks like, but when confronted with the reality of it he, along with the audiences, slowly loses his mind and his prefabricated ideals. He (and we) become lost in this seemingly alien world of war that had previously been a clear vision to us. Our joint progression is a testament to Klimov's smart design.
What I cannot stand about American war movies is the obviousness of plot. That doesn't mean all American war films are bad, but I do believe they follow a very specific pattern. Here it is: Someone goes off to war; they battle, lose a friend, gain some friends, recover from loss, learn some important lesson, and come home. Saving Private Ryan's title character (Matt Damon), Pearl Harbor's Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett), Jarhead's Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) all follow this line. In Come and See, Florya does go off to war with some ideals, he makes and loses some friends, but he never comes home. Also, he's not doing it in any cookie-cutter/Michael Bay way. He is literally destroyed of all his innocence, family, self- worth, and judgment. He never recovers from his losses, he simply pushes them deeper within or ignores them (which could be argued is the same thing), he never learns lessons from his experiences (he becomes angry and disavowed with own thoughts and ethics), and he never comes home, because he doesn't have a home anymore and he wants to keep fighting (I also understand that "war" and "The Army" could be his home, but I disagree with that. I feel his home is truly destroyed, when his innocence is destroyed).
Lastly, Come and See's realistic approach to filming is remarkable and startling. There are no sweeping shots of the horizon and the soldiers walking through vast fields, epic crane moves around the statuesque protags (a la every Michael Bay-type war film), or funky color separation or manipulation. It is really is 2 hours of hand-held camera, live ammunition and explosions, real color, and original WWII uniforms. Come and See is an intelligent exploitation of your senses and emotions that are clearly visible in the young actors own minds. When Florya stands next to the nearly leaded cow you see his real fear just like the guy watching the film next to you. Some documentaries are a cleaner look at war than Klimov's film.