Come and See: A Belarussian and Russian Film On The Partisan War In 1943

I just watched the first half of иди и смотри, in English, “Come and See.”  I had to stop. It was just too much. It’s not like the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, it is random, crazy, evil violence committed on peasants who are not really supporting the partisans.

This rarely happens to me, but on minute I smiled, the next I wanted to wretch, and the next I got misty eyed.  I’m attemping to watch it in the original Russian but it is hard because it is in essence peasant Russian and their accents are pretty damned hard to unpack at times so sometimes I have to rewind and turn the subtitles back on.

I was told by a dear Russian friend–who lives in Russia–that Come and See captures the wanton brutality of war in its essentially random nature.

I can not say yet as I reccoment this film from 1987–that was damn near shitcanned by Soviet censors and I can understand why. It is harsh, beautiful, tender, cruel and arbitrary in equal measures. If you have the stomach, go ahead but be warned.

More when I finish.

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