Elem Klimov's 1985 masterpiece Come and See is certainly a film that will make you miserable and put you on the verge of tears, but surely for the right reasons.
I was actually surprised that I'd never heard of Come and See before stumbling upon it through a youtube video a week ago - some of my favourite films, notably 2008's Waltz with Bashir, are anti-war films that portray a deeply traumatic and shocking message, in total contrast to the often-depicted romanticism of war. I've always stood by the belief that the best war films are anti-war films that don't have happy endings, and that depict in the most realistic of ways the utter hopelessness and futility of conflict. Come and See couldn't fit that description better. I'll be spoiling a lot of the plot talking about the movie here, so I'd highly recommend that you watch it if you're at all interested; but I'll give a sincere warning that the film might affect your mental wellbeing or cause panic, so a head's up if you do decide to watch it.
Come and See follows a young Belorussian boy named Flyora, as he joins a partisan unit in 1943 with ambitions of resisting the German occupation. There's only one scene, near the end, which comes anywhere close to portraying an actual battle - most of the narrative centres itself around the horrors which Flyora witnesses over the period of a few days. We see Flyora's mother and two young sisters murdered, his friends shot dead, and in a harrowing 25-minute long scene, the population of an entire village rounded up and burned to death at the hands of the SS-Einsatzgruppen. There are no triumphant heroes, or acts of valour. Come and See portrays a side of war that's often disregarded, that is the atrocities and abject suffering forced upon a civilian population. The film itself is actually recorded much like a typical horror film, with leering shots that follow behind characters and a distinctive absence of music. For the first half of the movie the only visions of the Germans (the looming monster of the story) we see are silhouettes in the fog, disembodied voices, or a reconnaissance plane that follows the main character through the Belorussian countryside. It instils dread and a feeling of weakness, forcing upon the viewer the same overwhelming fear 16-year old Flyora witnesses. By the climax, Flyora (portrayed flawlessly by Aleksei Kravchenko) - undoubtedly intentionally - appears as if he has aged 50 years over the course of the film, with his skin wrinkled and sagging and his eyes bloodshot. The viewer is made to feel as utterly distraught and hopeless as Floyra by the time that the credits roll, and the message,
628 БЕЛОРУССКИХ ДЕРЕВЕНЬ СОЖЖЕНО ВМЕСТЕ СО ВСЕМИ ЖИТЕЛЯМИ
is shown, translated from Russian to
628 VILLAGES IN BELORUSSIA WERE BURNT TO THE GROUND WITH ALL THEIR
INHABITANTS
For myself, the prevailing message of the film is the dangers of dehumanisation, in tandem with an authoritarian government's eugenics. During the village-burning scene, we see the German troops and local auxiliaries getting drunk, laughing, and plundering the town with joy. Klimov portrays well the overwhelming consensus amongst the Wehrmacht and the greater German population that Slavic people were sub-human, and should be treated as utterly disposable. Hundreds of accounts from the Eastern Front detail how German soldiers and auxiliaries would use the guise of 'anti-partisan operations' to raze entire towns and massacre as many people as they sought fit, without remorse. Dehumanizing an entire race of people to an occupying force of immense power, giving them the excuse to be as barbaric as they wish without consequence, has time and time again been the source of the worst genocides in human history. Near the end of the film, the Belorussian partisans capture ~10 German soldiers who took part in the massacre of the village, and one fanatic German exclaims that the Slavic race does not deserve to exist - "You have no right to be". He tells them that they will be utterly wiped out, and that they deserve to be because their race is inferior.
For its portrayal of German soldiers, Come and See has been widely denounced as little more than Soviet propaganda; yet this is only because it challenges the rhetoric that not all German soldiers in the Second World War were 'evil'. Many people continue to hold the belief that it was only the SS that knew about the true ramifications of the holocaust, and that the majority of the Wehrmacht did not know or partake in such massacres. This is flatly false. I came across the account of an elderly German who, after watching the film upon its release in 1985, stated, "I was a soldier of the Wehrmacht. Moreover, an officer of the Wehrmacht. I travelled through all of Poland and Belarus, finally reaching Ukraine. And I will testify, everything that is told in this film is the truth. And the most frightening and shameful thing for me, is that this film will be seen by my children and grandchildren."
The phrase, "Never Again" is one that has been used time and time again by world leaders and activists. But in my own personal opinion, it is often used as a hollow buzzword that has no meaning behind it. Did the unspeakable rapes, murders, massacres and barbarism of the Second World War teach us nothing? In Yugoslavia, we failed to prevent Srebrenica. In Myanmar, we continue to prevent the slaughter of the Rohingya. In Palestine, we fail to protect the vulnerable refugees and citizens whose lives are snuffed out daily. In all of these instances, the driving force behind such abhorrent brutality is dehumanization, and the ability to look upon a fellow human as less than an animal because of their race, their religion, their culture. When we say "Never Again" we must do something, as humans, to unequivocally ensure that we mean it. I'm sad to say that I hold little hope that we will learn anything, and perhaps in 60 years my grandson will be writing his own blog post about the atrocities of the Third World War. But I can only pray that those who watch Come and See will never forget its message.
I'll include at the bottom here, a link to one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, where Flyora angrily shoots a portrait of Hitler whilst a vision of Hitler's rise to power flashes across the screen.
Comments
Post a Comment