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And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
Come and See (1985)
"This 1985 film from Russia is one of the most devastating films ever about anything, and in it, the survivors must envy the dead."
Elem Kilmov’s 1985 Soviet anti-war drama Come and See , adopted from the 1978 book "I am from the Fiery Village", opens with teenage boy Flyora (Aleksey Kravchenko) digging a discarded gun out of a sandy trench with the intention of joining the Soviet partisans in Nazi occupied Byelorussia .
The film's title comes from Chapter 6 of The Apocalypse of John, in which "Come and see" is an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and that is exactly what we are going to witness throughout this film and Flyora's journey.
This journey that is senses-shattering depiction of loss of innocence, man's sadistic cruel nature and dehumanizing horrors and brutality of war will be ending in inevitable destruction of this young man's soul and indeed survivors may envy the dead.
The lead performance of 13-year-old Alexei Kravchenko is a good part of what makes this film great (There are stories out there that much of his performance was done under the influence of hypnosis).
Nearly blocked from being made by Soviet censors, who took seven years to approve its script, Come and See is the best (anti-) war film ever made.
Is it true that audiences demand some kind of release or catharsis? That we cannot accept a film that leaves us with no hope? That we struggle to find uplift in the mire of malevolence? There's a curious scene here in a wood, the sun falling down through the leaves, when the soundtrack, which has been grim and mournful, suddenly breaks free into Mozart. And what does this signify? A fantasy, I believe, and not Florya's, who has probably never heard such music. The Mozart descends into the film like a deus ex-machina, to lift us from its despair. We can accept it if we want, but it changes nothing. It is like an ironic taunt.
“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, ‘Come and see.' And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
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Plot Summary
The film follows Flyora, a young Belarusian boy who eagerly digs up a discarded rifle to join the Soviet partisans. His initial excitement for "playing soldier" is quickly obliterated.
The Descent: After being left behind at a partisan camp, he meets a girl named Glasha. They survive a devastating German paratrooper attack and return to Flyora's village, only to find it deserted. In a haunting moment, Flyora refuses to believe his family is dead, while Glasha glimpses a pile of executed villagers behind a house.
The Nightmare: Flyora wanders through the scorched landscape, eventually ending up in the village of Perekhody. There, he witnesses a "punitive action" by the SS (modeled after the real Khatyn massacre). The villagers are rounded up into a barn and set on fire while the soldiers celebrate with music and alcohol.
The Ending: Flyora survives and joins a group of partisans who have captured some of the perpetrators. The film concludes with a famous "reverse-montage" sequence where Flyora fires his rifle at a portrait of Hitler, symbolically attempting to undo history until he reaches a photo of Hitler as an infant—at which point he stops, unable to kill an innocent.
Historical Context: The War in Belarus
The film is based on the book I Am from the Fiery Village by Ales Adamovich, which collected firsthand accounts of survivors.
The "Dead Zones": During the German occupation, over 600 Belarusian villages were burned along with their entire populations.
The Dirlewanger Brigade: The SS unit depicted in the film is widely believed to be based on the SS-Sondereinheit Dirlewanger, a unit composed of convicted criminals known for extreme cruelty and lack of discipline.
Casualties: Belarus suffered more than almost any other nation proportionally; roughly 25% of its entire population (over 2 million people) was killed during the war.
Key Symbolism and Themes
The Biblical Reference: The title is taken from the Book of Revelation ("And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see."). It refers to the arrival of Death on a pale horse.
The Reverse Montage: This sequence is a masterclass in editing. As Flyora shoots the portrait of Hitler, newsreel footage plays backward—concentration camps are dismantled, Hitler's rise to power is reversed, and he becomes a child. The sequence suggests that even in the face of absolute evil, the human soul (represented by Flyora's hesitation to shoot the baby) can still recognize innocence.
Nature as Witness: Unlike many war films that take place in urban rubble, Come and See is set in lush forests and deep bogs. Nature is depicted as indifferent, beautiful, and eventually choked by the "unnatural" presence of war machines and toxic smoke.
Why It Is Significant
Come and See is often cited as the "ultimate anti-war film" because it offers no catharsis. It strips away the "glory" of combat and replaces it with the primal reality of genocide. As Roger Ebert famously noted: "The survivors must envy the dead." It serves as a haunting historical document of the Eastern Front, a theatre of war often underrepresented in Western cinema. It remains a polarizing but essential viewing experience for understanding the psychological toll of total war.
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