Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)
I have to write something about this movie. I saw it in my teenage years and it literally scarred me like no other film ever has. The director, Elem Klimov, created a vision so horrifying, realistic, and disturbing that he simply quit directing films as he believed he had breached the limitations of the medium. No film has ever depicted the stark brutality of war with such unflinching realism.
The film follows a Belorussian boy named Florya who witnesses the horrors of operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front. The actor who plays Florya, Alexsey Kravchenko, actually ages before your eyes due to his experiences as the film goes along. Over 30 million people died on the Eastern Front and it often goes forgotten that the Nazi’s racial hierarchy extended to Slavic people as well. That racist barbarism and the violence that stemmed from it are depicted about as nonchalantly as it probably occurred. The decision to portray it so plainly makes it that much worse. This film is essentially the evil that men do, to cop a phrase.
Regardless of how difficult this film is to watch, it is required viewing. I remember feeling sick and in desperate need of a shower after my first viewing, but this may well be one of the most important and best films ever made. It transcends the medium.
