You’ve never seen a soviet film? No Andrei Rublev, Cranes are Flying, or Ivan the terrible?
Come and See has some pretty heavy images. I couldn’t remember who the main bad guys were, I guess they were Nazis. I don’t remember there being much to the story, and I didn’t think it was quite as good as “Destiny of a Man” or “Ivan’s Childhood”-both WWII era soviet films.
As far as the best WWII era movies, I would go with The Thin Red Line, Das Boot, and Schindler’s List.
Stalingrad is very good. Not a Soviet film, per se, but a WWII film told from the Russian perspective.
YYea, Ivan’s Childhood is very, very good, but that goes without saying, I mean, it is Tarkovsky we are talking about. As for Come and See, I’ve been wanting to see it for awhile, and this list further adds to that. I have to say however, that I doubt I’ll like it or think it better than The Thin Red Line- that movie is one of the underrated masterpieces in the history of cinema.
Watch it intensely. It is excellent.
Check out the war movie THE ASCENT (1977) by Klimov’s wife (who died a few years after directing it, making it her final film). It was released in the Eclipse series last year, and when I went into a screening of it cold 2 years ago, I was blown away.
Have yet to “Come and See” it, (ha!) but I can second that recommendation for The Ascent. Powerful stuff.
It´s certainly one of the few films which depict the true horror of war, and a truly disturbing experience. The director Elem Klimov grew up in Stalingrad and experienced much of what he later depicted in the film when he was a boy himself. A comparable film would be City of Life and Death which is the best film I´ve seen this year.
I won’t mention any spoiler type information, but, for me, Come and See is at the top of the list of all the war films, and I loved The Thin Red Line and Ivan’s Childhood and Das Boot.
@ Jason Trochesset – No I have not seen any of those. If I have it obviously did not make an impact. I will certainly try to track them down.
I’m a big fan of Das Boot (former Submariner) and I very much can appreciate the Thin Red Line (Malick is the man).
The Ascent, huh? I’ll have to track that down now. Thanks everyone. I’ll post my opinion of the movie after I watch it today.
Schindler’s List better than Come and See?yeah…ok..can i laugh now?
“Schindler’s List better than Come and See?yeah…ok..can i laugh now?”
I wouldn’t laugh…but I might cry. Schindler’s List sucks. Come and See ought to be required viewing for any monkey who thinks joining the military and going off to war is neat.
So it took me a week longer than expected but I just finished the movie. Wow! I cannot honestly say it was unwatchable, sure there were some seriously brutal scenes (running away from his house, the bog, his dad, the village)but nothing I would say that was outlandish. If anything I think that they implied so much more than was shown. I was initially put off by the grainy-ness and pixelated nature of the stream, but the film sucked me into to the point that I didn’t really care; I’m sure both transfer quality and bandwidth played an important part. I don’t NEED to watch it again, but I think that I would very much like to watch it again. There are some very unsubtle metaphors, but I certainly did not understand them all. What does the smashing of the eggs mean? Is that why the bird was watching them? Was that the end of his innocence, his first kill, so to speak? The planes overhead, granted they meant that Germans were there but they seemed to signal Fit hitting the SHan, were they like the riders of the apocalypse? And holy crap did that kid age? He was like Brad Pitt (in u know what) towards the end, he had these huge bags under his eyes and frown marks for miles. To summarize, I would never ever call this a fun movie, but it certainly is an important film. I am so happy that there is a place like The Auteurs where anyone has access to these amazing (at least to me) unknown films.
Come and See is one of my favorite films of all time, disturbing yet transcendental at the same time. I cannot think of to many other films like that. Maybe Apocalypse Now.
in my opinion those two films you mentioned – Apocalypse Now and Come and see ware made for totally different audiences. i don’t think you could ever compare them, but they’re both good.
JAMES BALLENGER – it’s pretty normal you didn’t understand or like. it’s hard to understand the mentality of russians when you’re not connected to them in any way. there’s one where they have slogans instead of dialogue: ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ or ‘Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland.’, ‘What the hell do you know about surfing? You’re from goddamned New Jersey’, and on the other hand you have a war story where they talk for 4 minutes all together in the whole movie. it’s idi i smotri – go and observe. i think that’s pretty much what’s important on the other side of the planet.
and all americans are about disneyland and surfing, right? dont play into facile stereotypes. “idi i smotri” instead.
i didn’t say that. i said that they’re different themselves and that were made for different audience.
@ IRRENA – I appreciate your answer but your tone does seem to kind of seethe at what I suppose to be your impression of the American POV. But I’m confused are you responding to my initial post about the State of Soviet films as well as Come and See, or to my opinion of the movie? So I will answer both.
I’ve reflected on it (the movie) and while I don’t think that I misunderstood the movie; I am baffled by your response. “JAMES BALLENGER – it’s pretty normal you didn’t understand or like. it’s hard to understand the mentality of russians when you’re not connected to them in any way. there’s one where they have slogans instead of dialogue: ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ or ‘Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland.’, ‘What the hell do you know about surfing? You’re from goddamned New Jersey’, and on the other hand you have a war story where they talk for 4 minutes all together in the whole movie. it’s idi i smotri – go and observe. i think that’s pretty much what’s important on the other side of the planet.”
I never meant to sound as if I did not feel art was coming out of the USSR; I simply was not privy to it and so have had very little exposure to it. If you thought that I was speaking in a jingoistic tone, I certainly apologize. I was more hoping for a discussion about the state of the system, was it hard to develop material? Is it like in the US where you have to hunt down art-house theaters to find anything but the current big budget blockbusters? Was Come and See revered when it was out?
I felt that the film was a fantastic work of art that does what any good film should, make you want to discuss it. If I were to dissect it, I would say that the ideas it was trying to share was/is universal; not necessarily profound (war is hell) but worthwhile none the less. I don’t think anyone is shocked to learn that during war, mankind is cruel; I read that the director based some of the brutal scenes on his on personal experiences. As far as comparing Apocalypse Now, I think that is Apples and Oranges. Come and See is a film about the atrocities of War; Apocalypse Now is Heart of Darkness set during the Vietnam war. If you had referenced the Deer Hunter then I think you would have been a little closer to the mark
Come and see is a very powerful film, just some tidbits, was filmed in belarus and is set in belarus, not exactly russia, and i think we all agree this movie is something special. and its so nice to see the complete apocolypse of war for what it is through the eyes of the innocent and civillian,and not a soldier.
This movie is one of two movies that have been the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was watching a dream, the other being Maya Deren’s Meshes in the Afternoon. The scene when the boy is stuck in the bog just set off my, “I’m trying to run but not going anywhere wake up wake up wake up!” dream reaction, hardcore. The sound design is brilliant too, thinking of post-rock/noise/weird music.
—PolarisDiB
Moderated
bump
i’ll look forward to seeing this film again. i only saw it once, way back when i was an undergrad. so seeing it my second time will almost be like a first again.
This film is genius. A celluloid window into hell. The only horror of war that’s missing is the smell.
Brilliant film for sure, but very difficult to watch for its very truthful depiction of the cruelty and brutality of the Eastern Front. We watched this in college in a “Film and War” class and half the class just couldn’t take its intensity. Despite its mostly surreal visuals and tone (actually because of them), I would say its one of the most realistic and honest depictions of war ever made in any art form.
Actually, I’m planning on watching it soon because I am on a Russian war film kick (just watched Cranes are Fling and Ballad of a Soldier), but I’ve been putting it off because I know its going to screw me up emotionally for a while after watching it. Its that good.
Klimov’s mise-en-scene is primitive and ponderous and stupid. His style is restricted to following or leading his characters with the camera as if it were a wheel chair, or having them stare blankly into the camera until we have no other choice but to shout “Suffer!” at they screen. I was dealing with it until he actually had that big water bird stare soulfully into the camera, and then I started laughing. It probably didn’t help that I watched Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron two days earlier.
First time I saw come and see I was extremely high. The bog scene was 30 minutes of torture. When they got out at the other side and they were struggling to stand I FELT that shit.
Been wanting to watch this, I thought this quote by the director was interesting, never forgot it.
“I’ve lost interest in making films. Everything that was possible I felt I had already done.”
I just finished seeing this yesterday and must say I was quite disappointed. Yes it is extremely effective in conveying the horrors of war, and I agree with many on this thread about its dreamlike qualities, yet . . . Come and See is less an anti-war film than a beautiful piece of wartime propaganda. I know it was made in 1985, but it seems more like a call to arms for Soviet citizens to defend their borders, than a plea for sanity and peace. Take, for example, how Klimov presents the German soldiers. To a man, they are sadistic ghouls, or wretched cowards who deserve only the most gruesome retribution for their crimes. And yes, the atrocities committed by the Wermacht were horrific, but man, the Red Army’s raping and pillaging through Germany on its way to Berlin at the end of the war can hardly be justified either. This lack of historical balance, combined with bad Kabuki style emoting left a bad taste in my mouth. Come and See takes too much of a Manichean position toward its subject for my taste, which is a shame. By the end, all I could think about was how perfect this film would be as a recruiting tool for the Red Army in 1942.
“First time I saw come and see I was extremely high. The bog scene was 30 minutes of torture. When they got out at the other side and they were struggling to stand I FELT that shit.”
I wasn’t even high and I had that same experience.
—PolarisDiB
RocketDigital
http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/8366/
I haven’t watched the film yet, but my interest is piqued. I plan on watching it tomorrow.
I very much would like to discuss this film, in particular about where this was made. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched any movie that is from the USSR era. Was this a particularly productive film time period? Are there any fans that have watched this during it’s release period? I have never thought of films being watched in public during the Soviet Union’s existence. Not that I didn’t think there were Cinemas there, I just never considered it.