Come and See (The Criterion Collection)

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For eight years, [12] filming could not begin because the State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino) would not accept the screenplay, considering it too realistic, calling it propaganda for the "aesthetics of dirtiness" and "naturalism". [9] Alongside this, the death of Klimov's wife Larisa Shepitko, also a filmmaker, in 1979 forced him to first complete the work she began on what was to be her next film, Farewell; it would finally be released in 1983. [15] Eventually in 1984, Klimov was able to start filming without having compromised to any censorship at all. The only change became the name of the film itself, to Come and See from the original, Kill Hitler [16] [17] (Klimov also says this in the 2006 UK DVD release). [18] Educational but disturbing are three short Soviet films made from interviews with survivors of the Belarus genocide in 1942-’43. Several elderly men and women describe the horrors of their survival while their families and neighbors were slaughtered around them. Some were spared by chance, and one man simply admits that he abandoned his family when an opportunity arose. The main woman interviewee was shot, injured by shrapnel and severely burned on her arms and hands. She was pregnant and down with typhus at the time, yet dragged her badly wounded husband to the next village, on a sled. It’s harrowing stuff. The final woman is a wrinkled old grandmother who could be a poster model for Russian sweetness. She describes losing her husband, surviving and being slow to accept a new man. When she proudly speaks of starting a new family and raising six children, she smiles in a way that elicits tears. Rubezh, a partisan fighter, comes across them, and takes them to meet the surviving villagers, including the badly burnt village elder, who tells Flyora of his family's deaths, and that Flyora should not have dug up the rifles. Flyora attempts suicide out of guilt, but Glasha and the villagers save and comfort him. Flaming Memory,a three-film documentary series from 1975–77 by filmmaker Viktor Dashuk featuring firsthand accounts of survivors of the genocide in Belorussia during World War II a b c d Dunne, Nathan (18 July 2016). "Atrocity exhibition: is Come and See Russia's greatest ever war film?". The Calvert Journal . Retrieved 20 July 2019.

And I decided to make a film about this tragedy. I perfectly understood that the film would end up a harsh one. I decided that the central role of the village lad Flyora would not be played by a professional actor, who upon immersion into a difficult role could have protected himself psychologically with his accumulated acting experience, technique and skill. I wanted to find a simple boy fourteen years of age. We had to prepare him for the most difficult experiences, then capture them on film. And at the same time, we had to protect him from the stresses so that he wasn't left in the loony bin after filming was over, but was returned to his mother alive and healthy. Fortunately, with Aleksei Kravchenko, who played Flyora and who later became a good actor, everything went smoothly. Stein, Elliott (18 August 2009). "Come and See". The Village Voice. New York City. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012 . Retrieved 25 February 2014. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, "Come and see!" And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Release [ edit ] Original release [ edit ] At the end of Come and See, words on the screen inform us that 628 Belarusian villages were burned during the Nazi occupation, along with their inhabitants. We are spared most of the visceral details, but all that we need to see is an immensely haunting closeup of Floya's face as he witnesses things that no human being should ever behold.Flyora is partially deafened from the explosions before the two hide in the forest to avoid the German soldiers. Flyora and Glasha travel to his village, only to find his home deserted and covered in flies. Denying that his family is dead, Flyora searches an island across a bog. As they leave his village, Glasha sees a pile of executed villagers' bodies outside a house. The two become hysterical after wading through the bog, where Glasha screams at Flyora that his family is actually dead in the village, resulting in him pushing her into the water, then immediately trying to rescue her. Perhaps one of the reasons this film is so brutal and horrifying is that it's told from the perspective of a young Soviet boy named Flyora, who is basically drafted from his village, where his mother and family both root for him and don't want him to go off and fight the Nazis. His childlike charm as seen in the first couple minutes of the movie where he and a young friend are playing in the sand, looking for buried rifles of soldiers all comes to a screeching halt sooner rather than later as young Flyora faces the intense nightmare of war.

There have been a smattering of films over the past several decades that cover the atrocities of the Holocaust with everything from the Oscar-winning Schindler's List from Steven Spielberg to the just as important Hungarian indie film Son of Saul. Even Salo: 120 Days of Sodom covered the nazi regime in Italy and most recently, Taika Waititi took an impressive approach with Jojo Rabbit. These films have spanned multiple decades and genres that try and tell part of a massive story and war that happened not too long ago across the globe. Claude Lanzmann's 10-hour documentary Shoah captured perhaps the most visceral stories from all aspects of life from that time, but it's with Soviet film director Elm Klimov's 1985 film Come And See that some of the most disturbing visuals are shown that have capsulated the Holocaust in a strikingly visual way, similar to the recent film 1917, a vision that is not soon forgotten.

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a b " Come and See (21 February 2020 re-release)". Box Office Mojo. IMDbPro . Retrieved 18 March 2020.