I placed Elem Klimov’s 1985 anti-war work Come and See on my watch list years ago. The film’s title comes from the Book of Revelation, “I heard the Beast say Come and See”.
When the restored print was released in 2020, there was universal acclaim for the 142-minute film. At times shocking, numbing, unforgettable, the director writer consciously acknowledges Aleksei Rodionov’s realistic camera work with startling character portrait compositions.
Come and See is the story of a simple Russian peasant boy with visions of adventures fighting occupying Germans along-side the resistance. The inescapable Hell on Earth brutality of World War 2 confronts fourteen-year-old Florya, an extraordinary performance from Aleksey Kravchenko, as youth evolves to a shattered existence.
Klimov’s Come and See is about human beings who stopped being human, just beings.
4.5/5 stars or maybe 5/5 stars.