Come And See

Always been kind of afraid to watch this. One day...

I wouldn't be afraid of watching it - the film is very responsible in its depictions.

:-O

I haven't seen a lot of Russian cinema. But what I have seen seems to have a cinematographic language of its own compared to western EU/US cinema. Something that happens in this film a lot, along with the long single-shot takes (Cuaron indeed must have lifted directly from this), is the use of off-camera sound and dialogue. It's not always obvious who is speaking, or who someone is speaking to, and this happens several times in this film (I noticed this is a reoccurring trait in Hard To Be A God too). One scene I found particularly interesting was when they stick-up the older man going urinating at the back of his house. We see it from the point of view of Flyora but it's only implied that it's he who is speaking because this is one of the first times we hear him speak in such confident, fully-formed sentences. Perhaps it's not Flyora speaking, perhaps it's his companion Roubej (I wasn't sure), but even when the farmer is facing the camera, he doesn't seem to be able to see his aggressor himself. The audience becomes an invisible presence sneaking up on this man and holding him at gunpoint.

Right at the beginning of the film we see the village elder calling out to unseen people, talking about digging. Then we're introduced to Flyora's friend. It's rather disorienting because it's almost as though Flyora will just be a supporting character, and the film's more likely to be about his friend, but we hardly see him again.

While there's a lot made about how harrowing this film is (and it is, without doubt), there's a lot less attention to how darkly humorous and surreal it is. The whole scene where Flyora first meets Glasha in the wilderness is like a confusing romantic fairytale. Glaisha acts like two different people in the same body - one moment bold, and cryptically confident, next soft and emotional, (doesn't she first introduce herself as 'Rose?' the subtitles were too fast for me to follow this bit). And without any big goodbye, they become separated and we never see her again; that is, unless the young woman who is bundled into the truck later on by Germans happens to be Glasha (it's not clear).

Bro i fucking SNORTED pic.twitter.com/4PwkkbGkjs

— titties & shrimp (@asmilingbag) August 6, 2020

Always been kind of afraid to watch this. One day...
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Sunday, March 13, 2016

Watched this morning and wasn't wholly prepared for it. God alive what an extraordinary experience.
I like what xyzzz said about it, that it's 'very responsible' in its depictions of violence and cruelty. It's not exploitative and sensational. Its job, as its title implies, is to show. I was shown.

How come posts from here don't appear on the main site? How are people supposed to be dazzled by my banal responses to great art if they can't see them?

it's a great movie, and there is nothing more harrowing in this (at least for me) than the scene at the end of Ivan's Childhood that shows real Soviet footage of Goebbels' cyanide pilled dead children laid out on the ground.

not that I was arsed about Goebbels' corpse but I absolutely don't want to see real children's corpses in a movie

I'm not convinced by that final montage? I like that those are literally the only shots the kid fires but the partisans walking into the forest and us finally losing sight of his face would have been a powerful enough ending on its own.

The stork. I can't stop thinking about the stork (maybe to protect myself from the scenes in Khatyn).

who has seen klimovs rasputin film 'agoniya'?

I did, on the big screen. I had to move seats because a presumably-Russian older couple nearby kept chortling at scenes that were not apparently funny, and muttering to each other in between. Certainly not as striking a film as Come and See.

I saw this in the theater - last year, I think - in a revival. It’s the first and last time I’ll see it. Quite bracing.

I saw this back when it was first released. My Russian professor also saw it and was appalled. She said the title was appropriate, it reminded her of young boys torturing an animal and telling her, "Come and see," knowing that she would be disgusted and upset.

it's on the mosfilm YouTube site btw