A Very Great Work of Art
Added 11/1/2009
I cannot make any comment on this film that adds anything to the many fine reviews of it that I have read by other viewers and critics. I only wish to add another voice of praise for a work of genius. There is no painting, no work of literature, and no other film that comes close to portrayal of the nature of war and of the human condition achieved by this director, who apparently never made another film, and explained, when asked why, that he could see nothing left to say. I agree with him entirely. The fact that this film combines elements of horror and fantasy with the most brutal realities reflects, I think, the nature of our experience of the world, not this film-maker's methods. This is a searing, shocking, hypnotizing, and somehow extraordinarily beautiful film. It is not a film that will leave you with any feeling that all is right with the world, or ever can be.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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As with a camera of Thunder
Added 8/5/2009
To my mind, the best war movie ever made, and one of the best movies of all time period. One might object to calling it a war movie, but the film depicts how war is experienced by a VAST majority of those influenced by it. The movie captures all the extreme confusion and despair that real war imposes upon real humans. The entire movie, the main reason for its brilliance, is that it is essentially an overturning of your imagistic associations with war. Piece by piece, the protagonist's and viewer's associations with war are paralleled, and so are the devastations violence imposes upon protagonist and viewer. And imagery is Klimov's master tool. The child protagonist is by far the most apt choice, with his wide and rapt eyes, as the viewers are seeing real war for the first time, eager at first and soon made speechless.
Truly the name "Come and See" is appropriate, as you are dropped into some fresh hell. Expect to be changed utterly - to view as a witness, through art, suffering as if for the first time.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Masterpiece of Soviet propaganda.
Added 2/2/2009
I remember when this movie came out in 1985 I was in 7th grade and our class along with the whole school (3rd to 10th grade) were forced to go see this movie. It was a terrible experience! I can`t forget having agonizing headache after watching this movie. Pale faces of my friends were showing deep affection after watching those horror scenes, we all feeled deep hatred towards evil Germans. We all grew on communist propaganda and didn`t doubt for a second everything that was shown in this "piece of art".
Only after Lift of "iron curtain" and reading countless books about WW2 (not in russian) I was able to start separating propaganda from reality. Sure, atrocities were done by germans in WW2, just as they were done by russians, just as they were done by french, english and americans. That`s why it`s called WAR!
Yes, germans executed red commissars and partisans, just like Gestapo arrested my grandmother for assisting partisans and noone saw her since. In german occupational forces eyes those were terrorists. So russian soldiers were raping and killing on occupied territories in East Prussia.
Taking separate scene and making movie about american soldiers killing the whole family and then taking turns in raping their daughter (Mahmoudiya, Iraq, 2006), would this fairly depict Americans? Could you based on this fact call it official line of American Occupational Force in Iraq?
I wouldn`t recommend watching this movie unless you are a schoolar doing research in the field of propaganda. This is definitaly "R" rated movie and should be on the same shelf with Nazi-era Goebbels propaganda material.
17 out of 35 people found this helpful.
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3.5 stars out of 4
Added 2/1/2009
The Bottom Line:
One of the most disturbing and powerful war movies ever made, Come and See is somewhat unstructured but incredibly haunting; if you can watch the last half an hour or so of this movie and then want to go out and fight a battle, then you have my sympathies.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Soviet Cold War Propaganda
Added 12/16/2008
Why would anyone in their right mind believe the events portrayed in a movie, especially one produced in a Communist country. The films made in Hollywood don't portray the truth or the facts but Hollywood has two motives in doing so: the liberal ideology that is fostered on the uneducated in order to elect liberal politicians and especially Barack Hussein Obama; second, to make money.
I viewed the propaganda film made in Belorus, a Communist country, and I believe the significance of the movie is not the events it purports to exhibit, but the message it is trying to send to the gullible in the Iron Curtain countries. The movie was produced during the Communist era. When will Moscow show a film of the Katyn massacre where they no doubt will show the SS and Gestapo murdering 15,000 Polish officers.
There were many war crimes committed by both sides but the anti-partisan actions in the occupied USSR were assisted to a large degree by Ukrainians, Latvians, Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Russians, etc. who all had burned into their memories the atrocities committed by the Communists against them prior to 22 June 1941. Tens of millions were murdered under the Lenin and Stalin regimes.
One scene which certainly is contrary to reality is at the end of the movie where the Germans and their allies are prisoners and are machine-gunned to death. The reality is that anyone captured by the partisans were horribly tortured and left to die. This was the standard tactic of the partisans and had been ordered as such by Stalin immediately after 22 June 1941. We have seen such tactics used by all Communist terrortists, whether in Yugoslavia, Chine, Korea or Viet-Nam.
The claim that the Germans herded the population of a town or village into a building and then proceeded to set fire to that structure originated with the French Communist Maquis claim that the Das Reich Second SS-Panzer Division killed the people of Oradour-sur-Glane by such a method. The Communists of Belarus have improved upon these preposterous claims by stating in the propaganda movie that over 600 such villages in that country suffered the same fate. Why did not the criminals of the Soviet regime bring this up at the Nuremberg trials where they also tried to blame the Germans for the assassinations of 15,000 Polish officers at Katyn.
The French government attempted to bring to trial members of the Das Reich Division but eventually no one was ever prosecuted and convicted but the investigations revealed that the Maquis set in motion the events which culminated in the tragedy of Oradour. If the government of Belarus has any verifiable evidence that the Germans forced civilians into a building to burn them to death, let them do so now.
13 out of 45 people found this helpful.
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A Very Great Work of Art
Added 11/1/2009
I cannot make any comment on this film that adds anything to the many fine reviews of it that I have read by other viewers and critics. I only wish to add another voice of praise for a work of genius. There is no painting, no work of literature, and no other film that comes close to portrayal of the nature of war and of the human condition achieved by this director, who apparently never made another film, and explained, when asked why, that he could see nothing left to say. I agree with him entirely. The fact that this film combines elements of horror and fantasy with the most brutal realities reflects, I think, the nature of our experience of the world, not this film-maker's methods. This is a searing, shocking, hypnotizing, and somehow extraordinarily beautiful film. It is not a film that will leave you with any feeling that all is right with the world, or ever can be.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
As with a camera of Thunder
Added 8/5/2009
To my mind, the best war movie ever made, and one of the best movies of all time period. One might object to calling it a war movie, but the film depicts how war is experienced by a VAST majority of those influenced by it. The movie captures all the extreme confusion and despair that real war imposes upon real humans. The entire movie, the main reason for its brilliance, is that it is essentially an overturning of your imagistic associations with war. Piece by piece, the protagonist's and viewer's associations with war are paralleled, and so are the devastations violence imposes upon protagonist and viewer. And imagery is Klimov's master tool. The child protagonist is by far the most apt choice, with his wide and rapt eyes, as the viewers are seeing real war for the first time, eager at first and soon made speechless.
Truly the name "Come and See" is appropriate, as you are dropped into some fresh hell. Expect to be changed utterly - to view as a witness, through art, suffering as if for the first time.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Masterpiece of Soviet propaganda.
Added 2/2/2009
I remember when this movie came out in 1985 I was in 7th grade and our class along with the whole school (3rd to 10th grade) were forced to go see this movie. It was a terrible experience! I can`t forget having agonizing headache after watching this movie. Pale faces of my friends were showing deep affection after watching those horror scenes, we all feeled deep hatred towards evil Germans. We all grew on communist propaganda and didn`t doubt for a second everything that was shown in this "piece of art".
Only after Lift of "iron curtain" and reading countless books about WW2 (not in russian) I was able to start separating propaganda from reality. Sure, atrocities were done by germans in WW2, just as they were done by russians, just as they were done by french, english and americans. That`s why it`s called WAR!
Yes, germans executed red commissars and partisans, just like Gestapo arrested my grandmother for assisting partisans and noone saw her since. In german occupational forces eyes those were terrorists. So russian soldiers were raping and killing on occupied territories in East Prussia.
Taking separate scene and making movie about american soldiers killing the whole family and then taking turns in raping their daughter (Mahmoudiya, Iraq, 2006), would this fairly depict Americans? Could you based on this fact call it official line of American Occupational Force in Iraq?
I wouldn`t recommend watching this movie unless you are a schoolar doing research in the field of propaganda. This is definitaly "R" rated movie and should be on the same shelf with Nazi-era Goebbels propaganda material.
17 out of 35 people found this helpful.
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