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Video by FFWD Staff Madness instigated by the horror and brutality of war has rarely been rendered as uncompromisingly or poetically as in Come and See (U.S.S.R., 1985), Elem Klimov’s stark remembrance of one adolescent’s experience of the German invasion and occupation of Byelorussia in 1943. This is serious cinema, seemingly invested with the collective emotional weight of thousands of untold stories. The Nazis pillaged 628 villages in Byelorussia during World War II, and the victims of this destruction seem to be metaphorically present in every haunting, elegiac and unforgettable image of this film. Floryan (Aleksei Kravchenko) is an idealistic youth with high hopes of assisting in the liberation of his country. He loots a dead soldier for his gun and then enlists with the ragtag, poorly equipped division of the partisan army camped near his village. When the partisans leave him behind, presumably to shield him from the atrocities of combat, little do they realize that Floryan will be propelled on a grim odyssey through a litany of horrors, each more unimaginably grotesque than the last. Klimov is consciously exploring themes of childhood innocence here, or, more particularly, his ambivalence towards the possibility that such a thing exists during wartime. As Floryan’s tragic descent into madness progresses, his numbness becomes increasingly pronounced. Apparently, Klimov induced hypnosis in his lead actor, and then used Kravchenko’s resultant blank, hollow-eyed expression to achieve these unsettling portraits of a child gone mad. Numerous subjective cinematic techniques intensify the audience’s identification with Floryan’s increasingly disturbed point of view. Most memorable is the application of Viktor Mors’s eerie sound design. In one sequence, Floryan is shelled in the partisan camp and the viewer is given the impression of his tinnitus by the use of high-pitched frequencies on the soundtrack, like the effect of an incessant ringing in the ears. As infantry paratroopers pursue Floryan through the forest, the audience, like Floryan, hears only this high-pitched whine. By the end of the film, Floryan stares off into space as he fires repeatedly upon a Nazi propaganda poster proclaiming Hitler as liberator. This scene is cut with stock footage of Der Fuehrer and his troops, the images playing in reverse until Hitler is shown in portrait as just another child balanced on his mother’s knee. It’s not a subtle device, but it effectively provokes consideration of the nature of evil and innocence, and the moral choices faced by every individual, especially in times of extreme conflict. Come and See is a courageous film, one that balances deep regret with its assertion that every person contains the capacity to internalize and rationalize unfathomable evil. It may seem a pessimistic view, but in light of the recent events in Kosovo and other unresolved violent conflicts throughout the world, Come and See is essential viewing for anyone who needs to be stirred from the detached complacency brought on by the distant location of such events. It is both telling and unfortunate that a film made 15 years ago about ethnic cleansing in the Second World War is still as relevant today as when it was produced. It’s even worse that Klimov’s vision of hell on earth is far more potent and disturbing than any of the network approved views of war delivered by the mainstream media every night at 5 and 11.

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