Klimov asks us why?

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2011)

Elem Klimov's "Come and See" captures the inner spiritual experience of being at war unlike any other war film I've seen. The innocence of the protagonist, 14 year old Floria is representative of our own unconsciousness of the realities of war. Floria takes us with him as war is forced upon his conscience for the first time in the most brutal, realistic, cold and hypnotic way. Just the same way we are misled by a false representation of soldiers as heroes, Floria's delusion of becoming a hero of war is quickly realized. His innocence is stolen forever and his spirit will be eternally crushed by the presence of the greatest evil man has ever come to know. Klimov captures the devastating monstrosity of the unfeeling Nazi troops as they round up Jews like sheep and celebrate the extermination of each and every one of the villagers. With scenes the viewer can almost smell, Klimov creates a very real experience as we feel the wounds this historic act of pure evil has left opened, gouging a deep hole into our history as a people.
The piece of the film I found most brilliant is the way Klimov captures the inner spirit of our protagonist Floria. His pure mind rapidly becomes flooded with images and memories of war that will crush even the strongest man's spirit into a million pieces. He witnesses genocide, he comes close to being exterminated alongside his mother and twin sisters and is captured and tormented by the Nazis. His inner world is portrayed through the external expression of his face. We see his skin age into petrified wrinkles and chapped skin while his eyes become glued so wide open that they can't possibly stretch any further as they try to take in the unfathomable hell on earth being created right before his eyes.
If only in a matter of weeks war can turn a young innocent boy into a grown man whose not only been through hell but still has to marinate in it, who can grow gray and have molded into his face wrinkles he should never have seen until the natural force of gravity etched them into his skin, then Klimov is showing us the insanity of violence and hatred, and the deep unforgiving destruction it births. He is asking us, why?