3. Come And See (1985)
Horrific World War Two set Russian drama which deals with the Nazis going on a rampage in what is now Belarus. The film portrays the struggles of a young boy called Flyora as he tries to survive a hostile, war torn environment. Flyora and his friend dig about in some sand looking for rifles so they can join the Soviet Partisan Forces. The next day, Flyora is snatched up by the Partisans leaving his distraught mother with little chance of survival if the Nazis invade the village. He is given a very lowly rank in the Partisans and when they go to confront the Nazis, they leave Flyora at the camp base. Flyora is not too happy about this but his troubles are set to one side whenever he meets the beautiful Glasha who is in love with the Commander of the Partisans. Glasha goes a bit loopy and kisses Flyora. Just as they are kissing, they are deafened by a volley of bombs dropped in the vicinity by the Nazis. Glasha and Flyora visit the latter's village. No one is there and the place is buzzing with flies. Flyora can't accept that his family has been killed and he tries to flee but both he and Glasha spot a pile of mutilated corpses lying behind a house. Totally hysterical, Flyora wades through bogland to an island. There he meets Roubej, a resistance fighter who sends him to look for food. This leads them into the presence of the SS and a field full of mines which blow up two of Flyora's comrades. Later on, Roubej and Flyora try to steal a cow from a Nazi collaborating farmer. Roubej is shot dead. Trying to escape the next morning, Flyora attempts to steal a horse. Its owner is displeased but hides Flyora when they hear the Nazis coming. Going to the village of Perekhody, Flyora meets another problem when the Einsatzkommando arrives and herds everyone into a wooden church. Flyora escapes through a window, but a mother who is trying to escape with her child is gang raped by the Nazis and has her child thrown through a window back into the doomed church. The Nazis torch the church and laugh their heads off, posing for pictures and drinking beer. Flyora goes to retrieve his hidden weapon and comes back to the destroyed village. There has been a scuffle between Partisan and Nazi forces and the Partisans have in their custody a couple of Nazis, Belarusian collaborators and the Nazi Commander. The collaborators translate the Commander's words for the onlookers. He begs for mercy. A can of petrol is thrown over the captives, but a disgusted villager shoots them before they are burnt to death. As they go to move on, Flyora notices a picture of Adolf Hitler in the mud. We see Hitler's rise to power from shots of the present day to when he was a baby. Flyora shoots at all the images but balks at shooting baby Hitler. A card informs us that 628 Belarusian villages were razed to the ground along with their inhabitants. Flyora gathers his rifle and rejoins the Partisans on their travels. I cannot think of a more harrowing war film than Come and See, and I am saying that in earnest because I wrote my Senior Honours dissertation on war films, and therefore had to watch quite a lot of them. Instead of relying upon blood and guts heroics that are so prevalent in the genre (films made about the Vietnam war tend to be gory and full of spectacle) Come and See gets infiltrates your psyche as you follow poor Flyora. It is mainly a psychological portrait of war - it takes you right inside Flyora's head - from the hopeless denial that his family have been massacred up to his inability to shoot the photo of a baby Hitler. The film is an important one because there is a dearth of films that represent the war on the Eastern front during World War Two. It is important that we do not forget the atrocities committed in the East by the Nazis - whole villages burnt down and their inhabitants killed - as we can see in the harrowing church scene in the film. Genocide was not just confined to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Terrible acts of mass murder were committed out in the field. Come and See gives us a glimpse of hell. It is a marvellous film but it pulls no punches when it comes to recreating the abyss that swallowed up and spat out Belarus during the Second World War. Intensely harrowing viewing.