Must watch: "Come and See"
This is exactly what we're trying to avoid
War movies are typically anti-war. War is hell. War is chaos. The best war movies capture this by weaving hyperrealism with surrealism. To pick only one is to permit the viewer to disassociate. Balancing the two, grounds the narrative while allowing the viewer to share the emotional rupture of the protagonist.
To truly understand the horrors of war, filmmakers must coerce the audience to probe the dark, dirty recesses of their brains. This requires filmmakers to trigger the imagination and multiple senses. This is a risky task, but "Come and See" achieves this.
Come and See is a 1985 Soviet production following a teenaged boy as Belarus battles Nazi invasion in 1943. The madness that unravels after his conscription follows both a literal and sensory path.
This is a film everyone should watch at least once in their lifetimes. Especially as first-hand experiences fade with time, and a new crop of unlearned warmongers send us into a new hell.
Mos Film has kindly made the film available for viewing.
In 2008, Come and See was placed at number 60 on Empire magazine's "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". It also made Channel 4's list of 50 Films to See Before You Die and was ranked number 24 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
To learn more about the shockingly brutal Eastern Front, I'd also suggest Dan Carlin's series "Ghosts of the Osfront"
