Elem Klimov's movie 'Come and See'

I had heard about this Russian movie a while back, I think on one of those clips shows, '100 greatest war movies' or something. So when I saw it the other day on sale for only £5 in HMV I snapped it up.

I wonder if anybody else has seen it and what did you think? Overall I found it a very hypnotic movie, almost kind of dream like.

The only problem I had with it, if you can call it a problem, is when (SPOILER ALERT) the Germans who burn the village are later caught and ambushed by the Russian partisans. It just seemed to provide too much of a neat traditional narrative-i.e. The evil doers are punished. Im not saying they didn't deserve to be punished-Nazi crimes in Russia were abhorrent and on a monstrous scale-but it just struck me as unrealistic, as perhaps a lot of these murderers got away with out paying for their crimes. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

And I have a question about the scene relatively early in the movie, when the boy wants to join the partisans, and two men come to his house to collect him. One appears to be Russian, but the other is a German military policeman! Can anybody explain what was going on in this scene? Why would a German be helping to recruit Russian partisans?

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

 

Dead;
You can watch the whole thing here; YouTube - come and see part 1
What do I make of it? Well burning villagers alive in churches was practiced by the Einsatzgruppens, SS, and even some conventional German military units.
German military policemen recruiting for the Partizani? Totally possible-given the cloak and dagger games played by both sides-but most effectively by the Russkis- during the course of the Partisan war. Grenkevich mentions German nationals working in Partisan units but does not get into specifics. Ask a Belarussian about this one.
The bad guys getting their just deserves? Well this is a movie-but yes the Partizani went after NAZI with a vengeance every time feasible-and wouldn't you?
All in all one great flick.
JeffinMNUSA

 

I'm going against the grain here, but I really dislike this movie. It's a cartoon.

 

Wolfy;
Yeah it's a cartoon-the subject remains a horrifically painfull episode in Eastern European history and for the most part the veterans are not willing to speak of it.
JeffinMNUSA

 

It doesn't seem like an accurate depiction of the events that occurred. Come and See, IMHO, uses these events as props to further its artistic agenda (a horror film).

 

Dead Celeb,
The two "German soldiers" at the beginning of the movie were partisans impersonating Wehrmacht soldiers. It is quietly suggested visually by the duo's ill-matching uniforms and unmilitary bearing as compared to the "real" German unit that appeared towards the end.

Wolfy,
The reality of German anti-partisan operations in Belarus were so horrific that I do not see how the film can exceed history, especially if one assumes the German unit in the movie is supposed to represent an einsatzgruppe. The razing of villages and wholesale slaughter were common place for "security operations" in that region.

 

Double Post.

 

According to an episode related to by Richard Rhodes' Masters of Death, the grave sites in Babi Yar Ukraine contained so many dead that for months gaseous emmission from the rotting corpses errupted from the ground in geysers. The forest exuded an noxious odour of death an year after the killings.

Axis history forum has a good discussion on it which can be accessed by the link bellow. Scroll to the second last post of the thread.

Axis History Forum • View topic - Proof of Einsatzgruppen

 

Come and See is a brilliant and brutal movie. It has also inspired many other filmmakers - the Tom Hanks' deaf on the beach scene in Saving Pte Ryan is inspired by Come and See's forest air raid scene.

 

The German EGruppen and their Waffen-SS anti-partisan divisions did mass murder, but not in the disorganized, cartoonish fashion depicted. These killings were generally done in a much more mechanical manner.

 

Quite on the contrary Wolfy,

The movie was based on a book; The Khatyn Story written by Ales Adamovich, who was in fact a partisan himself during the war and witnessed what he wrote about first hand in the very same village portrayed in the movie "Come and See".

The crimes committed in the movie were done by retreating Germans troops and was in fact just as disorderly as depicted in the movie as they had very little time, for the Red Army was closing in fast.......

"During the World War II Ales Adamovich, a teenager, still a school student, was to become a partizan unit member in 1942-1943. That was the time when the Nazis systematically torched hundreds of Belarusian villages and exterminated their inhabitants. It was based on his real-life experiences as a messenger and a guerilla fighter during the war-time, that he later wrote one of his most recognized works, The Khatyn Story, and the screenplay for the film Come and See."

Come and See is one of the most accurate and horrific depictions of what the war was like in the east.

 

How do you know that it is accurate? Come & See seems exploitative above all else in that it uses real events and their victims as props.

Most of the massacre accounts (open air killings, etc.) I've read that were committed by the Germans were done in a mechanical manner and often had a specific purpose. (suppress partisan groups with fear, etc.) Men who were in German EG sonderkommando units had a lot psychological problems and very high suicide rates.

Come & See paints the German soldiers as uncivilized demons in human form taking pleasure in mass murder. But accounts paint most German soldiers as normal people that were convinced by their government that the terrible things they did were necessary for the good of their country. So they did these things out of "duty" and for most, it was a terrible experience so they did not take pleasure.

 

Your opinion would seem to contradict critics who awarded the movie as best independent film when in debuted in Berlin and those who actually fought the Germans in the east.

What is your definition of "mechanical manner"? The SU lost about 20 thousand villages to the Germans, how do you imagine that happened?

Usually the entire population would be simply herded into a church which would then be set ablaze.

Surely you cant believe this. Invading a country and exterminating 20 million innocent civilians to ensure the safety of their country???

Sounds like the history channel to me.

In reality Wolfy, there was never a shortage of volunteers helping out the SS in "cleansing" the land of the inferior Slavic race.

If the Russians had fought in the same chivalrous manner as the Germans had on the eastern front, then the population of Germany would have been 0.

 

Mechanical in that "I'd rather not do this, but I have my orders". Most killing expeditions I've read in the historical record were like that. German people aren't cartoon demon caricatures.

The only German anti-partisan unit I've read to behave like savages is the Dirwangler unit (which was a penal unit composed of criminals) and was hated by their parent organization (the SS) for being too brutal. The majority of Axis anti-partisan/EG sonderkommando units murdered in an organized, methodical, and cold manner. It was not "enjoyable" work, but more like pure horror for those who were given orders to kill.

A lot of war crimes committed in the East (raze a village here and there) were designed to calm down partisan attacks and give the partisan groups a moral conundrum. "If you attack German troops again, your people will pay".

Those critics are mostly uneducated about WW2. It is a well made film, but it's a horror film that uses war crimes as convenient props.

And You aren't really addressing any of my points directly. You are just veering off with thin assumptions that the nature of the crimes depicted in Come & See are historically accurate.

And civilians in the East died from a plethora of reasons in WW2, not just mass murder.

 

I cant believe my eyes!!! So you are implying that "Come and See" is an exaggeration at best??? That German troops did not act like this in real life? and if they did it was only because of orders???

I assure you that the 6 thousand villages which were razed in Belarus alone were not the work of one German anti- partisan unit...

Oh ok, totally understandable then.

"Not only will we invade your nation with the intent to enslave but if you shoot back we will exterminate your families too."

Well then perhaps you can enlighten us with your extensive knowledge on the matter....

How would you respond to countless of documented reports and eye witness accounts of entire villages being exterminated in the exact same fashion as depicted in "Come and See"?

Which points exactly are you referring too?

Plethora?

Im sure a good number of them also died from starvation, pneumonia and even a few cases of tripping and falling a cliff while running away from the Germans.... JESUS!


This is a good start if you ever want to read up on what life was really like for the partisans and the villagers who faced these "brain-washed, civilized men" who were just "following orders".

Red Partisan: Memoirs of a Soviet Resistance Fighter on the Eastern Front (Hardcover)
by Nikolai I. Obryn'ba.

 

You're making this up as you're going along, aren't you? Mass murder did occur, and I'm sure that the minority of the Germans involved enjoyed it, and the minority may have performed acts similar to what was depicted in Come And See. But Come & See is not an accurate depiction of standard practice of killing methods in the East.

All of them? You've written a lot but you haven't disproved anything I've said. At all.

 

Read this, this is the village which the movie was based on and the same village which Ales Adamovich described in his fictional portrayal of your beloved Germans.

209 cities and townships and 9,200 villages had been destroyed in Belarus during WWII

Khatyn WWI Memorial in Belarus

 

Eh, I'm aware of that and once again, that does not advance your position an inch. I know that these people were killed.

As an American, I don't really have affinity either way for the Germans or Russians while it is obvious to me now that you have a blatant pro-Russian bias.

You are clearly trying to further vilify the Germans by implying that the Germans killed most of these people with the great enjoyment portrayed in "Come and See". Yet you are not offering substantive proof against what I originally stated.

 

I am afraid it is you who have failed to discredit anything which I have stated other then with your own personal opinion.

And I don't have to vilify anything ... The Germans did that to themselves.

Last question for you Worlfy,

How do you suppose the complete destruction of 20,000 villages in the SU occurred? or do you just deny this fact outright?

 

This is called a "Red Herring" argument, which I spotted quite a bit ago. I have never stated that these people were not killed, you silly person.


And I said "further villify", not just "villify".

You obviously don't understand or fully comprehend my posts and it's blatantly obvious. You are also appear to be ignorant about the operational history of these SS/EG units.

English isn't your first language, is it? I honestly hope it's not.