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Come and See Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 19 Reviews)

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What A War Is Really About
I viewed this film last night due largely to the high ratings of other commentors. The first half of this film is rather surreal;with a lot of symbolism that can be common in East European films. A lot of this symbolism can be rather diffucult to interpret and many people may be tempted to stop watching the film. This would prove a large mistake as the second half of this film is a stunning, intense portrait of the true horror of war. Outside of actual war footage, I have never seen a war film that recreates this horror as realistic as the second half of Come and See.

It is important, however, to remember that even though the Germans inflicted unthinkable acts upon the Russian people, the Russians also acted much the same toward German civillians and captured German soldiers. Do not forget that Russia began the Second World War as Germany's ally and aided Germany in the invasion of Poland and then invaded Finland. After the war ended Russia continued to inflict human rights violations upon the East European countries they "liberated" from the Germans.

In summation, I don't believe I will ever see a film that serves as such a stark reminder of the inhumanity that accompanies any war. Ironically, it was made by a country that has caused it's share of inhumanity.



Unique, Surreal Film About a Different Kind of War - Not Propaganda
I recently saw this movie, and was moved to comment about it after reading other reviews here on Amazon. Other reviewers here have commented that:
1) The surreal aspects of this film are a flaw or weak point.
2) The movie is about the horrors of war in general, not this particular war.
3) The movie is communist propaganda.

I disagree strongly with all three of these points.

1) The film *is* surreal, and that feature works perfectly to impart to the viewer a feeling of being dumped out of one world and into another that doesn't make sense - the exact feeling the 16 year old boy protagonist would feel when suddenly dropped into the hell of nazi occupation. I can't name another film that does so good a job of making the viewer feel like he or she is there, part of what is going on, seeing through the eyes and hearing through the ears of the protagonist.

2) This film is not about just any war. It's about the special nature of the war waged by nazis. There is no combat in this film - none - zero. This film never, ever shows the partisans fighting the nazis. It shows the nazis attacking unarmed civilians. Old and weak men, women, and children.

**** spoilers below ****



Then, in the aftermath of combat, when the partisans have captured a group of nazis, one of the ss officers explains in a calm voice the twisted logic of why they did it. It's all about exterminating an inferior race. "You don't have the right to be" he says, and "it all starts with the children". The nazis want to eliminate their enemy's ability to reproduce. Killing the women and children is not just a brutal act of passion, it's a strategic goal of the nazi war. The fighting between armies to gain control of territory and resources (what we usually see in a war movie) is only one half of the nazi war.

3) The movie is too thoughtful to be propaganda. Propaganda would tend to be a simplistic statement of "we're good, they're bad", but it's clear in this film that nazi ideology is being indicted, not the German people. In the ending montage that some have criticized, the boy is shooting at a picture of Hitler. It's clear he's blaming Hitler, not the Germans. With every shot he takes, time rolls back further, and further, undoing the things Hitler did. He rolls time all the way back to a picture of baby Hitler sitting on his mother's knee. Then, he stops. The camera shows a horrified look on the boy's face. He does not shoot the baby Hitler. This scene implies to me that the boy recognizes the potential for evil in all humans, including himself, and he fears that maybe the human creature itself is irredeemably flawed. I don't believe a propaganda film would leave such an open-to-interpretation ending, or an ending that didn't clearly place blame for everything on "the bad guys". I believe a propaganda film would have taken that last shot, wiping out Hitler at the root as if that answered all questions about everything that happened during World War 2.

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