Come and See

Rating: 8/10 (14 November 2015)

The 1985 Soviet war film entitled "Come and See," directed by Elem Klimov revolving around the Nazi German occupation of the Byelorussian SSR. As watching this film Andrei Tarkovsky's "Ivan's Childhood" came to mind. Although the two are quite similar as both depict a child in war they couldn't be far different in delivery. Klimov's film doesn't center around the psychologically events war has on children as much as Ivan's Childhood does. We have far more aspects of war that are being shown such as the separation of families, the portrayal of manslaughter, we even see the German's celebrating after essentially burning an entire village. Klimov takes an entirely new portrayal of soviet war films that is both haunting and shocking. Klimov's usage of cinematic tools that makes viewers feel like they themselves are experiencing the same volatile environment that Florya is confronted with which makes this film all the more difficult to watch. There is one particular scene that is almost a mirror image of a scene in Ivan's Childhood where Florya is looking over a well while searching for his family just as what Ivan does. The image of Florya that is reflected in this scene doesn't appear as that of a child in fact this scene is most likely the beginning of when we begin to see Florya start to age rapidly as hinted with the absence of hair that is shown in his reflection. You see Florya as someone who is actively trying to avoid the horrible truth; we see this clearly when Florya is always covering his ears. The contrast in characters between Glasha who sees death everywhere and Florya who avoids this is also portrayed in the scene were Florya refuses to believe that his family was killed and rushes to a nearby island in search for them not taking notice of the mass number of dead bodies behind his house. The scene were the bog that Glasha and Florya are trying to cross is noticeable dense but the drastic change in consistency that happens a few minutes later most likely serves as Florya's difficulty in accepting the reality-coming to terms that his family was killed. The conclusion of the film where Florya comes upon the portrait of Hitler is an impactful moment where Florya seeks to undo all the terrific horror events that all of Europe has suffered at the hands of Hitler. Every shot attempts to erase Hitler's existence.