Come and See
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| Come and See | |
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 Come and See DVD cover (Kino Video) |
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| Directed by | Elem Klimov |
| Produced by | Mosfilm Belarusfilm |
| Written by | Ales Adamovich Elem Klimov |
| Starring | Aleksei Kravchenko as Florya Gaishun |
| Music by | Oleg Yanchenko |
| Cinematography | Alexei Rodionov |
| Editing by | Valeriya Belova |
| Distributed by | Kino Video (DVD) Ruscico (DVD) |
| Release date(s) | September 27?, 1985 (USSR) |
| Running time | 146 minutes |
| Language | Russian German |
| IMDb profile | |
Come and See (Russian: Иди и смотри, Idi i smotri) is a 1985 Soviet/Belarusian film (a coproduction), directed by Elem Klimov and starring Aleksei Kravchenko and Olga Mironova in the leading roles. The film is set in 1943 in various villages in Belarus during the Nazi occupation.
The screenplay was written by Ales Adamovich in collaboration with Elem Klimov. The words Come and See ("Иди и смотри" in Russian) quote from The Apocalypse of John, chapter 6, ...and I heard one of the four living creatures saying, as with a voice of thunder, "Come and see!" (In Russian: "...и я услышал одно из четырех животных, говорящее как бы громовым голосом: иди и смотри.")
This film has not been rated by the MPAA. As it has violence, blood and suggestions of sex, it has been rated K-16 in Finland (and similar ratings in Iceland, Argentina and Germany) and acceptable for 15-year-olds and older in England and Sweden. Come and See features extreme wartime violence, off-screen rape, adult language, and brief nudity.
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[edit] Plot summary
The film begins with two young boys digging around a sand field looking for rifles.
One of the boys, Florya, finds a rifle and the next day partisans arrive at his house, taking Florya with them. The militia prepares to confront the Nazis but at the last minute the commander decides Florya will stay behind in the partisan camp, which rather disappoints the boy. He meets Glasha, a girl who is also staying behind. Suddenly, German airplanes appear and the camp comes under artillery fire.
Florya temporarily loses his hearing and returns to his village, certain that his family hid on an out-of-the-way island. There, he meets many villagers who fled the Nazis and eventually realizes that his family did not survive. He and three resistance fighters leave to find food for the starving villagers who are hiding on the island but they find that the Germans are advancing far faster than they had anticipated and that storehouses of food are nowhere to be found. One by one they are killed until Florya is once again left by himself. They manage to steal a cow from a local farmer but the cow is shot in a field during the night before Florya can walk it back to the hungry villagers.
Morning finds Florya in a farm field, near a village that is close to being occupied by the Nazis. An old man takes Florya and gives him the identity of one of his grandchildren, telling him to hide his rifle in a haystack so that the Germans do not suspect him. The Germans move into the village and herd all of the people into the wooden church until it is filled wall-to-wall with families. German propaganda vans drive throughout the village while the villagers are being rounded up, their loudspeakers making announcements such as "Germany is a civilized country". Once nearly all of the villagers are inside, the church is set ablaze. Florya escapes this - everyone who has no children is invited by an SS officer to leave through a tiny window. Villagers, mostly old women with many young children, stare in disbelief, screaming "animals". Florya climbs out and his life is spared. He watches the human inferno as drunken Nazis and Polizei applaud their efforts.
Florya recovers his rifle and meets the resistance fighters, who have managed to capture the Nazis. The Nazi leaders are given a chance to justify their actions and they do this in different ways; that they were either following orders or sincerely believe that Russians carry the disease of communism. One of the Nazi officers confirms Florya's claim that he indeed offered those without children the chance to leave and escape the fire. With partisans staring at him in silence he says that all troubles are from children. A woman cuts this short by shooting at them and the others join in the fusillade.
As the resistance fighters begin to march after the retreating German army, Florya notices a portrait of Adolf Hitler in the puddle. What follows is perhaps the most famous scene from the film:
Florya starts shooting at the portrait. Each shot, separated by about 15 seconds, is interleaved with a montage that goes backwards through time: We see corpses at a concentration camp, Hitler congratulating a young German boy, some Nazi party congresses during the 1930s, stills from Hitler's service in World War I, stills of Hitler in school, and ending with a picture of Hitler as a baby on his mother's lap. After each of those scenes Florya shoots at the picture again, symbolically undoing those images, but Florya does not fire a last shot which would have symbolically destroyed Hitler as an innocent baby.
The final scene in the film is of Florya catching up to the partisan column while Mozart's Lacrimosa is playing. After following him, the camera lifts up to the sky. There is no end - even after all of the horrible things that the protagonist has witnessed, he is not given a reprieve. This, along with the presence of another newcomer to the partisans, who resembles Florya earlier in the movie, before the portrait-shooting montage, implies that the war will go on forever.
[edit] Production
- Much of the footage was shot with Steadicam.
- The prosimian that is seen as the pet of a German SS General is called the Red Slender Loris.
- The 2006 UK DVD sleeve states that the guns in the film were often loaded with live ammunition as opposed to blanks, for realism. Aleksei Kravchenko mentions in interviews that bullets sometimes passed just 4 inches (10 centimeters) above his head (such as in the cow scene).
[edit] Music
The original soundtrack is rhythmically amorphous music composed by Oleg Yanchenko. At a few key points in the film existing music is used, sometimes mixed in with Yanchenko's music (such as Johann Strauss Jr.'s Blue Danube). At the end, during the montage, music by Richard Wagner is used, most notably the Ride from Die Walküre. The conclusion of the film uses the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem.
[edit] Awards
- 1985—FIPRESCI prize at the Moscow International Film Festival.
- 1985—Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival
[edit] Criticism
Walter Goodman, writing for the New York Times, dismissed the ending as "a dose of instant inspirationalism," but concedes to Klimov's "unquestionable talent."
Klimov did not make any more films after this one, leading some critics to speculate as to why. In 2001, Klimov said that "I lost interest in making films ... Everything that was possible I felt I had already done."[1]
[edit] References
- Goodman, Walter. “Film: ‘Come and See’”. The New York Times 6 Feb. 1987.
- ^ N. Ramsey, "Filmmakers Who Prized Social, Not Socialist, Reality" New York Times January 28, 2001
| Films directed by Elem Klimov |
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Feature films: Welcome, or No Trespassing (Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещён - 1964) • Adventures of a Dentist (Пoхoждения зубнoгo врача - 1965) • Sport, Sport, Sport (Спорт, спорт, спорт - 1970) • And Still I Believe... (И Всё-таки я верю... - 1976) • Agony (Агония - 1981) • Farewell to Matyora (Прощание с Матёрой - 1983) • Come and See (Иди и смотри - 1985) • |
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Shorts: Attention: Vulgarity! (Осторожно: пошлость, 1959) • The Groom (Жених, 1960) • Look, the Sky! (Смотрите, небо! - 1962) • Larisa (Лариса - 1980) • |
