Come and See

Elem Klimov wrote the script with Ales Adamovich, a former teenage fighter with the Belarusian partisans. The sources were Adamovich’s Khatyn and I Am from the Fiery Village, a 1977 collection of survivor testimony. The working title was Kill Hitler; the final one comes from chapter 6 of Revelation. Klimov fought censors for 8 years and started shooting only in 1984. Filming ran chronologically over 9 months. Aleksei Kravchenko, the lead, was 14, and a hypnotist using autogenic training was brought in to prepare him. Contrary to rumour, his hair did not go permanently grey: silver greasepaint plus a thin layer of real silver was used. Guns were often loaded with live rounds, not blanks; Kravchenko described bullets passing some 10 centimetres over his head. Klimov assembled the photograph Flyora stops shooting at from 2 images, of Klara Hitler and the infant Adolf. Mozart’s Lacrimosa plays over the close. The 14th Moscow International Film Festival handed out 3 Golden Prizes and this took one, plus the FIPRESCI prize. The Soviet Union entered it for the Academy Awards; it was not accepted as a nominee. The 2017 restoration won best restored film at Venice. A good fit if you want war built from testimony rather than heroics. Not for anyone avoiding hard scenes; the massacre of civilians is shown directly.