Come and See (1985)
The Truths of War
Quite often, when we think of war, we have a very textbook understanding of it. This is not exactly our fault, since a lack of war is always a good thing, something that the previous generation sadly, cannot partake in. When we hear war stories from our grandparents, or even from history channels, there is never a visceral concept of it. We think of Hitler, and all there really remains is a bunch of soldiers and heavy artillery in the background. The truth is, we are extremely fortunate not to live in the age of war, where diplomacy can usually fix transnational disputes. Once war breaks out, the biggest victims are not necessarily the governments or the armies. It always boils down to collateral damage — the innocents. By then, civilian deaths are just statistics to be recorded, and no longer a memory shared of exactly what befell during the dogs of war.
Elem Klimov does not agree. Drawing from his own experiences during WWII, Come and See is not for the faint-hearted. In fact, it may just carry a more surreal threat than Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible or Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies. And why should a traumatic film like this not be kept hidden, but rather celebrated for such rawness? The first truth mentions how lucky we are to be shielded from war. The next truth, however ironic it may be, is that we should be exposed to war. No, we should not all start enlisting just based on one film article’s truthful recommendation. Hollywood’s wartime films almost always emphasize the macho protagonist’s storyline, instead of sympathizing for the collateral damage that this most affects. Think Apocolypse Now and Fury. The best war film is the one that is the most antiwar, the one that would openly depict our worst atrocities without any reprehension. Amidst the unabashed explosions and frenetic footages, the beautiful landscape of Belarus descends into a living mumbled nightmare, and then we faintly see the surging presence of German attires.
In the beginning, Florya is much like your regular teenager; careless and constantly grinning. After uncovering a rifle from the sand, he patriotically enlists for the local partisan militia, and the scene where he is ushered away depicts a myriad of conflicting emotions: his panic-stricken mother, the boisterous insouciance of the officers, and Florya’s insufferable naivety. We see a boy eager to prove himself amongst men who have witnessed more than they would have liked, and when left on the bench during a military mission, Florya feels humiliated. The early ambience is disrupted when the Germans attack said bench, now vulnerable since there are no battle-hardened men to guard it. Florya and a girl escape, but alongside the audience, they never quite recover from the debris. Klimov does not believe in green-screen it seems; the unearthed dirt and artillery smoke never really dissipate from our POV. The horrors are only amplified when we return to Florya’s home.
It is not just the sublime cast which makes Kilmov’s triumph a largely Soviet affair. Postulating that this is in fact in the midst of a foggy and humid Belarussian landscape, Come and See literally tells us to see beyond the fog of war; something that is frantically unfathomable yet eager to display in its full might. Klimov does not just stop there. From the picture frame to the soundtrack, he bombards psychological manifestoes with the purpose of making us feel a part of the warfare. It is in the foggy margins. It is also from the aircraft white noise above. It is that eardrum ringing that follows us. Klimov creates a simulation of war in real time with his flummoxed sensory approach for us to share with Florya.
No, Klimov does not let his emotions spill unnecessarily on the canvas. He does not beat around the bush with the CGI, nor does he hold back on sharing these war experiences. While they continue to escape the Germans, Glasha, the girl next to Florya, catches sight of the pile of dead bodies behind a house. Were they lined up and shot to death? Or were they burned alive? The horror is exemplified because Klimov keeps our imagination running, all while the Germans copy and paste their acts throughout Europe.
The journey to the climax of Come and See is not any kinder to Florya. He is unlucky enough to survive right until the innovative transgressions. Hitler’s war was not just against the Jews. What do you do when all your enemies are dead? You go after the innocent civilians. Lebensraum (not to be confused with Liszt’s Liebesträume), is the key to justifying the Nazi’s genocidal pursuit. It translates to the “living space” Hitler so desperately craves to cleanse of impure races, so much so that he would tolerate village burnings, rape, and wholesale killings.
And what of our efforts in preventing such fascist contempt? Like Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, we explore the existential threat of totalitarian regimes who will do anything to achieve their goals. In the apocalyptic finale, the chimeric montage of documentary footage traces back to the first memory of Hitler himself. How could we possibly know that this innocent baby would start one of history’s most devastating genocides?
Admit it, the human psyche is twisted beyond repair, such that Klimov’s surrealism pokes at our tendency for violence. There are no victors, no cause for celebration at the end of war when we walk pass the Holocaust graveyard. The unflinching reality of mankind’s deepest, darkest diablerie is not metaphorical, but rather historical. On the chance that is abstract enough, then the canvas of war is enough grounds to spill our true Kafkaesque sadisms onto the innocents.
