Rating of
3.5/4
as with a voice of thunder, "Come and see!"
gideon43 - wrote on 05/30/10
Come and See takes its title from an oft-repeated line in the Book Of Revelation and relates to the oncoming apocalypse.
The movie deals with Germanys occupation of Byelorussia (Belarus) during the Second World War and the devastating loss of life inflicted by Hitler's SS.
Other realistic war films almost pale into insignificance when compared with Come and See.
It has a raw brutality that is unflinching and emotionally draining.
Lead actor Aleksei Kravchenkos performance is mesmerising and vivid and the atrocities depicted in the movie are gruesome, unrelenting and disturbing even when some scenes become surreal and intimate.
Propaganda of the highest level (made at the height of the Cold war) but incredibly effective all the same.
Director Elem Klimov (who died in 2003) never made another film after Come and See. In 2000 he said "I lost interest in making films ... Everything that was possible I felt I had already done", his undoubted legacy is one of the finest war films of all time.
