Film review 2

 

Come and see (1985) a true horrifying look at war

This review will be of Elem Klimov’s 1985 anti-war masterpiece Come and See, which even the co-writer Ales Adamovich admitted he couldn’t watch (Hoberman 2020). This review will argue why Come and See is one of the best war films, through Bordwell, Thompson and Smith’s (2017:61) evaluation criteria: Coherence, intensity of effect, complexity and originality.

Film summary:

Come and See follows a fourteen-year-old partisan that is separated from his troop in the midst of the 1943 Nazi invasion of Byelorussia (Ebert 2010).

Coherence:

The film is both unified and disjointed. Everything follows the narrative, but then there are shots that would cut away from the main focus as The cinema cartography (2017) points out, but this doesn’t run the unity. Instead it enhances it. The whole film shows how Flyora views the world and what he thinks he is seeing and these cutaways show what Flyora is imagining what is happening around him even when he isn’t looking at it, making it less focused on continuity and more on the mental state of Flyora (The cinema cartography 2017).

Intensity of effect:

To say the film is intense would be an understatement. Every scene that highlights the horrors of war is imprinted into the viewer’s mind, from a pile of dead bodies to the screams of the innocents. Every sight and sound the viewer takes in is what Flyora perceives or images as he fights to hold on to his sanity (The cinema cartography 2017). The whole film frames Flyora as a helpless victim and in turn the viewer watching him in also feel helpless, as if the viewer is there with him (The cinema cartography 2017).

Complexity

The film is an unusual one, in terms of it being both a straight forward war film and an insane mix of shots. There is a clear narrative, but as mentioned earlier it is all from the perspective of Flyora. The film, as Buck (2021) points out, continuously cuts “between simple beauty and mind-bending atrocity…” which constantly keeps the viewer engaged as they mentally prepare themselves for the next horrific scene.

Originality

The use of surrealism in the film separates it from other war genre films, while still grounding it in reality (Turer 2014). It shows the reality of war, instead of making it a “… 'flag-waving' propaganda to inspire national pride and morale…” that so many other war films employ (filmsite 2022). This is because “Despite these battle-scenes and depictions of war crimes, the movie never feels needlessly violent or disconnected from its emotional core” (Holloran 2019).

Conclusion

Robert Ebert said: “you can't make an effective anti-war film because war by its nature is exciting, and the end of the film belongs to the survivors," then added: “No one would ever make the mistake of saying that about...Come and See" (Morrow 2016). The film reminds me of the African proverb: “When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” Meaning that when powerful forces go to war, it's those who never asked for the conflict that are caught in the crossfire.



List of sources:

Bordwell, D, Thompson, K & Smith, J. 2017. Film Art: An Introduction. 11th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Buck, D. 2021. Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985). https://offscreen.com/view/come-and-see-elem-klimov-1985 (Accessed on 24 March 2022).

Ebert, R. 2010. And I looked, and behold a pale horse. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-come-and-see-1985 (Accessed on 22 March 2022).

Filmsite. 2022. War Films. https://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html (Accessed on 24 March 2022).

Hoberman, J. 2020. A Russian Filmmaker’s Travelogue of Hell. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/movies/come-and-see-film.html (Accessed on 22 March 2022).

Holloran, J. 2019. International Film: Come and See (1985). http://www.thecourieronline.co.uk/international-film-come-and-see/ (Accessed on 24 March 2022).

Klimov, E (dir). 1985. Come and See. Mosfilm.

Morrow, J. 2016. How ‘Come and See’ Uses Horror to Make the Best Anti-War Movie You’ve Never Seen. https://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/how-come-and-see-uses-horror-make-best-anti-war-movie-youve-never-seen (Accessed on 24 March 2022).

The cinema cartography. 2017. Come and See – Sight and Sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQEv3PzuO2c (Accessed on 22 March 2022).

Turer, J. 2014. 10 Reasons Why “Come ans See” Is The Best War Movie Ever Made. http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/10-reasons-why-come-and-see-is-the-best-war-movie-ever-made/2/ (Accessed on 24 March 2022).


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  Un Chien Andalou (1929), a call to murder. One way to describe Un Chien Andalou is that it is a Freudian fever dream and like Freud, it’s obsessed with sex and groping women (Crews 2017). This review will look at the film through Bordwell, Thompson and Smith’s (2017:61) evaluation criteria: Coherence, Intensity of effect, Complexity and Originality. But first the plot: Un Chien Andalou begins with a man sharpening a straight razor that leads to one of film’s iconic shot: a woman’s eye being cut open, setting the scene for the rest of the film which is men’s sadomasochistic tendencies towards woman (Stent 2014) and leads into a narrative about a man who with all his might tries to fight (symbolically and literary) the societal rules that hold him back as he attempts to rape a woman. Coherence: The film is all over the place giving it that surrealist dreamlike quality, aimed to “replicate their (dreams) very processes through illogical, irrational disruptions and disturb...
Read more

Film review 3

  Yeelen (1987), the story about the betrayal of one man’s penis This review will be looking at Souleymane Cisse ’s Yeelen , a film that as Okri said: “It is the kind of film you see once and it inscribes itself on you” (BFI 2018), and argue why it is a memorable film. The evaluation criteria used will be Bordwell, Thompson and Smith’s (2017:61): Coherence , intensity of effect, complexity and originality. The plot: Nianankoro, a member of the Bambara empire tries to escape his father, Soma, a member of the Bambara secret society, who wants to kill him (AfricanFilm NY). Coherence The narrative is straight forward with some minor issues that might leave a western viewer confused, as the film doesn’t explain the use of magic. But as the film proceeds the viewer can piece some things together. The editing is clean, except for one instance where a shot is darker than the rest. The narrative is relatively easy to follow, but does feel rushed and also some parts aren’t shown, ...
Read more