Come and See

1943, Belarus under Nazi occupation. A 16-year-old boy decides to join the partisans and fight the fascists. But he never actually enters combat. In fact, there are no heroic feats in this film at all — instead, what unfolds on screen is a slowly developing, seemingly endless apocalypse (the film’s title comes directly from the biblical Book of Revelation).

A desperately uncompromising anti-war film. For Klimov, war is an anti-natural phenomenon, something that stands in opposition to the original beauty and harmony of the universe. To prove this, the director shows no mercy to the viewer. Klimov knew the film would be extremely brutal and believed few people would be able to watch it. When he told Ales Adamovich, the author of the source book, about this, Adamovich replied: “Then let them not watch it. We must leave this behind us — as a testimony to war, as a plea for peace.”

Today, it is considered one of the most acclaimed anti-war films in the history of cinema. Critics often call it “the most terrifying war film ever made” — not because of spectacle, but because of its absolute psychological honesty.

🏆 Golden Prize — Moscow International Film Festival