Come and see
Number one on that list is currently held by “United Red Army”, number two is “Grave of the Fireflies”, number three is “Nordwand” and somewhere along the road, you’ll find “Apocalypse Now” and “Come and see”, both definitely in the top 10. Right after seeing the film, I think I cannot say whether I will have nightmares or not, that is how subtle the terror of this film is.
“Come and see” has a very extensive Wikipedia article and I am sure that a lot has been said about it. Most importantly I was intrigued by how critics call it both naturalistic and poetic, depending on who sees the film. On one hand it is certainly true that the film has elements of both, on the other hand there are no more different notions in this world than naturalistic and poetic. Naturalism has no place for ‘beauty’ yet the film has a lot of surreal, beautiful scenes. Maybe the reality is just that the real world is so unreal that it can only be understood through poetry.
When I started watching the film for the first time, I went through the first 45 minutes being utterly bored. Truth to be told, I am not very good with these films which are not obviously pleasant or entertaining, especially when it takes a long time for the storyline to build up. Without a doubt, the second part of the film has more, uh, action (if you can really call it that). As I have mentioned before, the terror in this film creeps up on you, slowly and somewhere on the line between consciousness and subconsciousness. It affects you with its deeper humanity and the knowledge that we are not seeing everything in this film, but in the facial expression of the protagonist you can indirectly feel how bad it is.
Speaking of that protagonist, there must be something about Russian films and their amazingly great child actors. “The Return” is another example of a film where the great acting of children strongly contributes to the film – in fact, neither “The Return” nor “Come and see” could live without the impressive acting of their protagonists. Besides Kravchenko’s Flyora, I think that Mironova’s Glasha is absolutely awesome. The scene in which she dances in the rain is both crazy and wonderful. It is too bad that she barely appears later on, but maybe that is also for the best.
I think a certain amount of idle time is necessary to watch a movie like “Come and see”. You kind of have to prepare yourself for it, and be willing to let the effects of the film linger afterwards. As for me, I will probably dowse my brain in a brainless, fun TV show now.