Come and See

So many films about the subject of war have been made glorifying and sometimes romanticizing the subject. Unfortunately some of them blur the true picture and leave out the ugly nature of what war is. Today, however I want to talk to you about a film that does the opposite of that. A film that shows war for what it is and how terrifyingly cruel we as human beings can be. It's a film that forever changed me and absolutely shocked me to my core. A film simply titled...Come and See. To call this film impactful is like stating Michael Jordan was great...really doesn't scratch the surface of what's underneath. This film is one of the main reasons why I started this podcast...I needed to talk about the film, but I didn't know anyone who had seen it to talk with.

So if you’re like me and you enjoy film and the impact and emotions that it can convey then grab a glass of your preferred liquid and join me in conversation. For me, tonight that’s a glass of Bourbon from our friends down at Buffalo Trace in Kentucky. So sit back, relax, and let’s talk the emotion and impact of film. Welcome to “Glazed Cinema“.

Come and See is a film that has a backstory and that story is equally as important as the film itself. Come and See is directed by Elem Klimov, a man who studied at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography or VGIK in Moscow from 1953 to 1957. Klimov would enter University at the dawn of a new age in the Soviet Union, sailing on waters, uncharted by those before him. You see, 1953 is not just the year that Klimov entered into cinematic history, but it’s also the year that Joseph Stalin died. I can only imagine the mixed feelings soviet society must have been feeling. After all there were many people like Klimov, who had lived their entire lives under Stalin’s reign. Now an ideological shift was coming in the form of a rising new leader by the name of Nikita Khrushchev. In fact it was in 1956, three years after Stalin’s passing that Khrushchev brought about a movement called “Destalinization”. For those unaware, Destalinization was the plan to move away from Stalin’s previous efforts and this affected most things in soviet culture including art...You see art, up until Stalin’s death...art had been deeply censored and everything was critiqued prior to release, particularly film. Stalin understood the power film had on its audience and that it reached a broader audience than other mediums. Unlike books, controlling film allowed his arm to reach across the country and could reach a broader audience. The illiterate, intelligentsia, wealthy, poor, and everything in between could watch and relate to a movie and Stalin would use the art form to spread propaganda and communist values.

Now let’s take a bit of a step back and talk about Klimov, because there’s one experience that’s going to prove important when talking about our film today, Come and See. Klimov was born during the year of 1933 in Stalingrad, now called Volgograd. He grew up experiencing the Great Depression and World War II and survived the battle of Stalingrad as a young boy. During that battle he was fleeing with his mother while the Axis powers assaulted the city. Klimov recalls what he had seen during their escape saying:

“...As a boy, naturally, I saw all those bombings. I remember us crossing the Volga and going behind the Urals, my Mom, my baby brother, we crossed the river in Stalingrad. It was October 1942. We were sitting in a shed on a ferry. Stalingrad was situated on the right bank of the Volga. It was a long city, at that time 60 km long. Nowadays, I guess, it is maybe 120 km long, or even more. Gee, a city long like a tube. At that time it was all ablaze. The river was ablaze too, this patch of fire being 1.5 km wide. They had bombed a petroleum terminal, and it all went down into the water, and the water was on fire. And we were being bombed, the water reached a boiling point because of all that. Our mothers covered us with their bodies. They put on top of us blankets, pillows, and themselves too - on top of all this. Of course I would peak out because I was curious. It was a long way to the Urals. My father stayed in Stalingrad to defend it. Naturally I’m burdened with very strong recollections about that hell. Because it was an excursion to hell. And it lives in me forever. So I thought it was a must with me to shoot a film about the war. That one reason…”

I cannot even begin to fathom such a sight and experience and I don’t wish to. An experience such as that, something so horrifying and dangerous can only linger in your consciousness. He mentions the feeling of it being an excursion to Hell, which we’ll revisit a little later on as well. I think it’s important to put ourselves there though. To get even a tiny glimpse at an experience that clearly haunted him and drove him while making Come and See.

Now, apart from his experiences Klimov obviously loved film to pursue directing and we haven’t talked about what that was like growing up and in university. Film under Stalin would have to meet the censorship demands of what he coined Socialist Realism. To fit that bill the film must appeal to the masses, have a likable and forthright hero, and above all support the Communist Party. There were many effects stemming from the cause of this intense censorship. One effect was the director’s ability or inability to match the censorship rules of the regime. Those who were willing to meet the demands would produce more films and earn a decent wage. Those who could not adapt were either exiled or silenced. Also, just for context, you may think that “silenced” meant that someone would show up at your house with a black bag and that person would be lost. Being silenced didn’t implicate death although sometimes it did. Silenced could mean a number of things, most commonly though this meant the industrial shunning of the artist. This led to the loss of their artistic expression or voice. Destalinization would also affect censorship as it too became more relaxed. This by no means meant freedom of press, I mean it’s not like people woke up and they could suddenly say and write anything they pleased. So this is the film and arts culture that Klimov has known and is coming into. Now in terms of Soviet directors there were few bigger than Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein’s directing and his films have had an impact on cinema that can still be felt today. He is known for films such as Ivan the Terrible, Strike, and of course Battleship Potemkin. The latter, a film about revolution and based on true events, presented Eisenstien with international acclaim and for many outside of the USSR Sergei Eisenstein was Soviet cinema. Destalinization, like Khrushchev wasn’t perfect and while certain old standards remained, arts and media as a whole were about to see a breakthrough with numerous voices rising with something meaningful to say. For cinema these voices were the likes of Bondarchuk, Tarkovsky, Shushkin, and Klimov. Elem had made various connections while at university, but none more important than another aspiring director named Larissa Shepitko, who he would later marry.

Shepitko was a great director in her own right making great films such as 1966’s Wings and 1977’s The Ascent. Wings is about a school principal and former female war pilot dealing with her past and present and The Ascent is about two men making a journey into enemy lines and the depths of their souls. At that time Klimov had made several films of his own and at the time of The Ascent he began writing a project with an author named Ales Adamovich about the Belarussian wars based on Adamovich's novel. Larissa’s next project Farewell to Matyora saw her making a film based on the Rasputin novel of the same name. Larissa had been working on the project and was scouting locations with her film crew when they were tragically killed in a car accident in 1979. Klimov dealing with the unfathomable loss of his wife decided to honor her by finishing the film that she started and changed the name to simply Farewell.

With this unimaginable loss, Klimov had finished three feature length films including Agony, Farewell and also the short film honoring his wife titled Larissa. In 1984 Klimov would revisit the project he began working on back in 1977; a project that was haunted due to censorship and demands that could not be met. This project would be picked up once again by Adamovich and Klimov, which would eventually be titled Come and See.

Come and See is based on a true story of Ales Adamovich during the Belarussian wars of WWII. Drawing on his hellish experience of the war coupled with Adamovich’s book and the loss of Larissa Klimov set forth to direct. In an homage to Belarus, Klimov chose to only shoot on Belasussian soil, and only used amateur actors who would speak Belarussan. The film itself follows a boy named Florya played by Aleksei Kravchenko and if you’ve never seen the film the title may at least shed some light on the tone of the film. The phrase “Come and See'' stems from the Book of Revelations. Quote.

“...And when he 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.”

The title is incredibly fitting, for we as an audience follow Florya through Hell on Earth.

Come and See is a true sensory experience and the score is very unsettling and haunts the movie starting with the opening scene. The story of the film is quite important. Important in the sense that it’s dealing with a historical subject, but in doing so is also speaking for those lost during a truly scarring point in Belarussian history. Taking place during the Nazi invasion of World War II this film recants the Belorussian genocide through the eyes of children. Klimov stated in an interview from 2001 as can be seen on Criterion’s release of the film:

“I would open the book very often because it kept him from the tiniest falsehood. The subject was too sacred for us to be false. I would tell Ales should I be pretty earnest, which I bet I will, no one will watch this film. Ales said all right, but we have to make this film all the same”. That quote alone goes to show how important this was to both men that they get this film right and do the subject matter justice”.

The film itself starts with Florya who looks to be somewhere between 12 and 13 years old digging in sand while an odd deep raspy-voiced boy barks orders like a drill sergeant. Florya digging while unsettling music and the boy’s barrage of orders and comments of war uncovers a rifle and together they run off as the title of the film flashes in black font. The next scene we see a woman staring at us, this is Florya’s mother. Florya wants to go to war. Realizing what this would mean for her and Florya’s two younger siblings she pleads with him to stay and not go. This leads to a sequence in which she runs to the other room on the verge of tears and returns with an axe, which she lays in his lap. When asked what she is doing she pulls the two small children out of bed and tells him to kill her and his siblings. He smiles at the two children and winks and his mother begins beating him with a length of rope. She drops the rope and begins to leave the house before stopping in the doorway. The two children begin play hitting each other mimicking the scene that just unfurled before them. Before she pivots to leave she screams “You’re not going! You’re not going!” The camera turns to Florya who sits in a chair and as he turns his head we see two Belarussian soldiers looking through the window. The war it seems has arrived at their doorstep. Eventually Florya leaves with the soldiers proud and optimistic of the journey he is taking. Hopeful that he can be heroic joining the cause. They arrive at a military camp in a forest where we see numerous Belarussian soldiers attempting to take a group photo amongst the tall trees. Florya sees a girl lift her head to look at him and is quite literally knocked backwards. The girl’s name is Glasha and she too looks to be around 12 or 13 years old. As the soldiers leave to go to war Florya and Glasha talk and dance in a lush green forest. They talk about love, marriage, and the life ahead of them. Rain starts to fall and Glasha happily dances in the raindrops and Florya looks on smiling. In a moment bombs will drop as the two run away from danger together. As we leave the forest scene behind us so do we leave the last bit of reprieve as we begin the descent into hell. By the time the film is over Florya and Glasha will be unrecognizable from the versions of themselves that we’ve just departed from, gleefully dancing and smiling in the lush forest.

What unfolds after their departure of this forest is the unravelling of humanity as we are familiar with it. What we’re left with is the inhuman act of war stripped down to its bare bones. Ugly. Horrific. Violent. Senseless. There is no hero for there is no trace of heroism to be found. There is however plenty of evil to go around, but more than that the evil intensifies as the film continues. You know that old saying “it can’t be worse than this'? Well in Come and See it always gets worse. Even during the bits of non-violence, the score doesn’t relent and makes you feel that danger is right around the corner. The sad part is that it almost always is. After all, this is a film set in Belarus during the Nazi invasion and we all know how terribly cruel and inhuman they were. This film is a hard watch, at certain points almost unbearable. As I said before, this film stuck with me for weeks afterward. I would reflect on it constantly. I would be concerned if someone watched and wasn’t moved to contemplate the fall out of genocide. It also gave me a little bit of insight into the inner torment that Klimov must have been feeling after losing his wife. The sadness, pain, hopelessness. Something I cannot and hope not to ever experience.

Having said all that though I can also honestly say this is one of the most important films I’ve ever seen. In my personal opinion if everyone was to watch this film I believe we would look at the act of war and violence on each other in a very different light. So often news talks of war as if it’s some run of the mill event happening far across the globe. We often forget that there are people on both sides fighting these wars and that no side truly wins. Innocent people caught in the middle, just trying to survive or live their day to day and get by.

Getting back to the film, there are sequences in this film that I will not soon forget. Like when Florya returns to his family home with Glasha. That sequence is quite powerful and well done. We see Florya return to his abode expecting to find his mother and hear the laughter of his siblings playing. Instead he returns to an empty house. There is no mother, no siblings laying; not a sound, except one. We as an audience are assaulted by the sound of buzzing flies. The music grows out of this sound and has a unique feeling of being quite abrasive, while still maintaining the feeling of emptiness. There is still food left out, things on the floor and table, all accompanied by flies. Florya has a feeling where his family is and as he looks at Glasha he smiles, filled with hope. She smiles back and Florya begins to run off only to stop before the barn to run back. He has forgotten his rifle and he gives himself some verbal thrashing for it. Retrieving the rifle Florya runs ahead as Glasha runs behind him trying to catch up. Glasha smiles, running through the green fields as wind rushes through her hair as we see Florya on the path ahead of him. As we pass the wood barn Glasha looks over her shoulder and she stutter steps forward. Her smile fades to a look of shock and horror. The camera quickly cuts and we see a number of bodies piled up behind the barn, the source of the flies. Glasha puts her hands over her face and as she pivots to run again. Florya does not see this, only Glasha and as she runs she lets out an audible scream, frantically running onward to catch up with Florya, urging him to hurry up. The ending is extremely disturbing for so many reasons, particularly what happens to Glasha. There are certain subjects that I have a very hard time with to the point that I’ll get physically ill when someone talks about it, rape . It affects me greatly and as a bit of a disclaimer if you are like me in this regard there are scenes in the latter part of the film that are quite disturbing. I know that if I were to watch a film, I would want to know beforehand, as someone who has a hard time with that subject. I just want to give you the same courtesy. There are no grotesque visuals of what happens thankfully, just the aftermath of that act, which is quite hard and very sad. I know that if I were to watch a film, I would want to know beforehand, as someone who has a hard time with that subject. I just want to give you the same courtesy.

My wife didn’t watch this film with me and I remember I watched it in the dark with the door closed. When the credits rolled I was emotionally and mentally spent. I sat there gazing at the film menu for several minutes, on the verge of tears. Essentially trying to decompress and somehow digest everything I had just seen. I remember uttering the words “wow” eventually and that’s when I got up and opened the door of our bedroom. I saw my wife and she could tell that this movie affected me and asked if I was okay and how the film was. I told her “I will never be the same man as I was two hours ago”. She looked at me and looked puzzled and concerned, but the truth is I meant every word and still mean it today. Come and See is exceptionally powerful and as I stated earlier, it changed my outlook of the world around me. Obviously not everyone is going to have the same reaction to a film, that’s true of anything. Truth be told when the last images faded to black I felt a lot of emotions. Horror. Aversion. Sadness. Hopelessness. Reflecting on the film for a few days however I kept coming back to one word. Something that is rarely seen in the film if at all, which is...Empathy. The sad fact is, some people in this world do not practice empathy. I can speak to it from personal experience. One of my friends was horrifically killed by another individual, which made me look at people in a different light. An act where empathy was nowhere to be found, where the only contemplation was done in violence and hatred. I truly believe that if people that commit horrifying acts of violence...like the ones portrayed in Come and See pictured themselves, or their loved ones as their victims they would hesitate to act. My takeaway, the one thing that I think you can take from Come and See is this: Practice more empathy and these senseless acts of genocide and violence can be eliminated.

Getting back to the film though...a lot of things in that movie stuck with me, but the final minutes of the film, to which there will be no spoilers. A goal I have for this podcast is to not spoil anything and I will certainly not start now. If I can quote the great Roger Ebert who put it best in a review of Come and See back in 2010 when he said:

“I must not describe the famous sequence at the end. It must unfold as a surprise for you. It pretends to roll back history. You will see how. It is unutterably depressing, because history can never undo itself, and is with us forever.”

Afterall, like Roger Ebert himself stated, it must be viewed to be felt and experienced fully. I will however tell you about the ending sequence of the film, which is accompanied by Mozart’s tragic Lacrimosa. The sequence begins with a message in red font on a black background, which states in Russian text:

“The Nazis burned down 628 Belarussian villages together with all the people in them.”

Once that title passes we join the Belarussian soldiers as they begin marching down a dirt path with the dark thickly wooded forest on all sides. The camera cuts through a line in the woods while we see the unit snake through the trail as we get closer and closer until rejoining their ranks and stops. The film ends as we watch the unit disappear down the path as we lose them in the thick underbrush. An interesting tidbit is that the camera used here is an early Steadicam, which guides us through the dark underbrush. If this was made during Stalin’s reign the ending would feel much different. I imagine this moment would feel like a rousing “go get ‘em” kind of moment. Where we cheer on the troops to fight against evil as we the audience leave the film to go about our daily lives, far removed from any true act of war. This moment is quite the opposite in Come and See however. Instead I wanted them to stop. I wanted to hide and protect them from the horrors they had experienced and from any other anguish they may encounter. I wanted the horror, the violence, and the war to just stop. I would like to think that we can all agree with that sentiment, at least in some way.

Now you may be thinking why should I watch this movie? Why would I want to experience this? Well, that’s a good question and I guess my answer is a multi-layered one. Come and See is a deeply human film. It’s a film that does what few can and continues to do, which is a testament to its greatness: It makes you feel something. At the heart of art isn’t that what it’s all about? As I said in the beginning, I believe everyone should see this film as there is truly no other like Come and See. I think we as a species could use a look in the mirror to see just how terrifying and cruel we can be and perhaps be compelled to stop acts and mentalities like that from happening in the future. I’ll leave you with this: after its release Klimov never made another film. When asked why he said, “I said all I needed to say”. It’s the greatest anti war film ever made specifically because of the reaction people get from watching it. Horror. War should horrify us all and Come and See is a grave reminder of that.

If you’d like to watch Come and See for yourself you can find it on The Criterion Channel as of this recording. The Criterion Channel is a streaming service of tremendous value from our friends at Criterion. The Criterion Channel has different pricing structures including $10.99 per month or $99 per year, which is what I chose to do. If you like film I highly recommend a free trial to see how you like it.

Apart from The Criterion Channel you can also find Come and See on Amazon for $3.99 to rent. If you’d like to learn more about the podcast please feel free to visit our website at glazedcinema.com. There you’ll find some background on the show and also a place to submit ideas for future episodes. For film fans who are hearing impaired the blog page on our website features each episode in written form as well. If you like this podcast tell your friends or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each week there will be new content including hints about episodes before they air. As always, thanks for listening and I hope to see you next time, with a beverage and another fine film.