Come and See (1985)
(Idi i smotri, Elem Klimov, Soviet Union 1985, 142 min., Belarusian, Russian, and German w/English subtitles)
Curator’s Choice – The films of Elem Klimov Only two decades passed between Elem Klimov’s (1933 – 2003) first and last features, but one could hardly find a more striking contrast of topics, styles, and techniques. After the triumphant worldwide success of Come and See, Klimov still had eighteen years ahead of him, but he could not make himself indulge in another film. “After Come and See, I am only interested in the impossible,” he once said.
A teenaged boy in Nazi occupied Belarus flees his own destroyed village and falls in with a band of partisans, discovering firsthand the brutal ordeals suffered by peasants. Klimov's final film is an odyssey on the scale of Apocalypse Now, shot in muted colors that grimly emphasize the barbarity of war. “A masterpiece not only of filmmaking, but of humanity itself,” Sean Penn.
Post-screening discussion with Senior Curator Peter Bagrov.