Come and See - Elim Klimov -
Russia: 1985

"The Greatest War Movie Ever Made" - J.G. Ballard, author of many bizarre works of fiction.

Well, ok, so this would be a film that Ballard would like. One of his recent books is prefaced by William Buroughs. But Sean Penn, known for his highly conservative and quiet demeanor (ah hem) also commented, "What I saw will stay with me forever...it's a masterpiece..."

And truly it is.

The class I taught this spring semester was about equally divided between horrified and enthralled. I admit that prior to the semester's beginning I had dismissed showing this film because of it's supposed difficulty in obtaining it (which turned out to not be true as a new DVD came out), and also because I was not sure that it's extremity was necessary in the depiction of formalistic style. There is plenty to pick from in the surrealistic end of the style spectrum; we did end up watching Big Fish as the class choice for our final film. But Come and Sees hugely sweeping and ethereal sensations were something that I remembered from the time I saw it in Chicago at the Music Box theatre when it was new.

I remember getting tickets with a friend, a room mate named Troy. We were both up for a movie, and I was up for about anything that was playing at the Music Box because I needed a taste of downown, living in the suburbs, and in an open kind of mood. Downtown, coffee, and culture was appealing. But from the moment the lights went down and Troy and I dived into the realm of the depiction of WWII Russia, we were no longer present in Chicago. In fact, it was some time before I could really return. I remember emerging from the theatre and it was raining, a nice heavy summer rain, and I stopped under the marquise and asked Troy, "Are we really here? Back in the US?" We had a quiet trip home.

The integrity of place that Klimov demonstrates never once breaks away in this cinematographic masterpiece. While there are moments of lengthy agony, as the "swim" through the swamp, they are never inappropriate, nor really overly lengthy without purpose. The style is extremely personal, and is so very much inside the Point of View of the main character, a young boy who is agonizingly transformed through the events he experiences during a chapter in the Russian invasion by the Nazis. We are taken from beauty to horror, from innocence to jaded and hardened bitterness. We are exposed to graphic violence superimposed over joyous and raucous celebration by the temporary conquerors. In his work here that depicts the reality of this event firmly established in history Klimov does 2 things simultaneously: he veers far into the realm of expressionistic techniques, while also bringing such a vision of realism to the screen. One of the most noticeable is his use of sound. While we watch Florya, the young boy, struggle with the destruction of his family, we literally hear the ringing of his ears, and the eerie superimposition of sounds of screaming and voices over the ring and hum still left in his head. We are watching him from the outside, but experiencing what he is hearing, and also vicariously through the torturous timing of the shots.

This film is all about contrasts. It is filled with almost mystical lyrical symbolism all throughout, such as the raining scene in the woods at the beginning. In the midst of the overhanging threat of the enemy, Florya, our young boy, has teamed up with Glasha, a beautiful girl of traditional Russian appearance. In the space of a short time they have a courting time, build a "home", sleep together to keep warm, and are visited by a stork. The spell of the dream is broken by Florya as he then remembers his family and returns to the village to find them. What follows is horrifying in its reality, but revealing in the way that Klimov uses the characters to play against each other in their emotional states to comment on the difference between the reality and denial that the citizens would experience during this historically horrifying ordeal.

Often forgotten in the wake of the Jewish holocaust and the amount of attention that has been given to that over time since the war, the Russian invasion was no less an ethnic cleansing. But once you've "Come and Seen" from the Klimov perspective, you will never forget it.

Here is another excellent review:
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/02/20/come.html