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.
Revelation 6:7-8
COME AND SEE is a Biblical command, and it is also a command from director Elem Klimov to the audience of his 1985 film by that title. We are meant to bear witness to the brutal acts of war Klimov depicts onscreen, but the film also works to remind us that we are being shown constructed images which were created deliberately to elicit a specific reaction from us. On its surface, the film is clear in its antiwar, antifascist message. On another level, the film invites the audience to consider the intention behind any visual message, including this film.
The cast is largely non-professional actors, and it was filmed on location in Belarus, but the naturalism of these elements contrasts with the director’s dramatic compositions in a way that draws the viewer’s attention to the intention behind each shot. Klimov uses incredibly controlled camera movements and startlingly surrealist imagery which emphasize the intention of the craft behind every moment we see. Extreme closeups of faces draw us into the characters’ emotional states; it is impossible not to empathize as the actors’ eyes bore into our souls. Long static shots and swooping camera moves that follow soldiers evading bullets across an open field keep us riveted to the action, unable to look away and increasingly aware of the camera that forces our gaze. We are meant to be aware of the heightened reality and the emotional manipulation which results, and feel discomfited.
Many narrative moments in the film explore this theme as well, demonstrating how imagery can be used to inspire hope, fear, or murderous rage. [spoilers follow]
The film is set in Belarus during the Second World War, and follows an idealistic 13 year old boy as he is recruited to the Soviet resistance. He leaves behind everything familiar, and witnesses the horrific realities of war.
Young Flyora’s introduction to the partisan squadron to which he’s been recruited is a slow pan across a motley crew assembling themselves for a group photograph. It’s an introduction that allows for a sense of history and humanity among the men. We see brutal injuries, in-jokes, props and poses that reveal bits of personalities. This photograph also perfectly encapsulates the ideals of camaraderie and bravery which attract Flyora to the military. As the commander describes how the veterans in the squadron understand the casualties and violence they will face going into this siege, Flyora’s visible eagerness and excitement is irrepressible.
There’s another scene which revolves around posing for a photo, with a very different tone. Flyora finds himself held prisoner in a village that’s been occupied and ravaged by Germans. A cluster of German officers arrange themselves around him, one holding a gun to Flyora’s temple, while another prepares to take a photograph.
We hold our breath, waiting for either the trigger or the shutter to go off—and only the shutter does. After the photo is taken, the Germans move on, leaving the boy to collapse exhausted in the dirt. The image of potential violence, the implicit threat in the trophy of the photograph, is far more valuable to the Germans than Flyora’s actual life or death. They don’t even bother to kill him, but the image of his near-execution will live on, inspiring terror or awe, depending on the audience.
The absence of violence in this moment is especially shocking to the viewer because virtually every other moment in the film ends in brutal violence. In a centerpiece scene of the film, Flyora scrambles to duck from gunfire in a huge meadow, alongside a cow who isn’t so lucky. A heartbreakingly long scene unfolds as the boy shelters behind the cow’s dying body. At one point, we can make out the silhouette of the cameraman reflected in the cow’s rolling eye as it dies on-screen. The audience is reminded that not all the death one sees in a movie, even in a fictional narrative, is fake. This point becomes relevant in interpreting a significant montage at the end of the film, too.
Another examination of political iconography happens earlier on. A group of villagers who’ve found refuge on a bog island put incredibly careful work into crafting a detailed satirical effigy of Hitler, complete with a skull armature. All of their fully justified anger and energy is directed onto a mere representation. The exercise might prove cathartic, but of course it’s a futile expression. In contrast, the Nazis put a great deal of effort into their own spectacle. When they trap dozens of families in a building and burn them alive, the act is calibrated for maximum terrorizing visual effect.
The Hitler effigy also finds an echo in the dramatic climax, when Flyora is finally driven, in anguish, to fire his weapon- not at another person, but at a portrait of Hitler in a puddle of mud. The image had been used by the Nazis earlier to taunt the villagers; now, it’s already degraded on the ground even before being shot at. Flyora’s fury unleashed on the image is, again, ultimately harmless and without consequence.
However, this impotent rage is set to an incredible montage of real archival footage from the death camps, leaflet drops, Hitler’s speeches- all running in reverse. We have been primed for all kinds of horror, real and fictitious, over the course of the film, and the stark black and white photographs feel like an inevitable culmination. Documentary footage of the Holocaust has been used to combat denialism and to educate, but it has also been recreated to serve as a sentimental kitsch or even anti-Semitic propaganda. These images of human-created horror are undeniably powerful, but context can dramatically change how that power is directed. Watching the footage in reverse fuels a kind of wishful thinking, a desire to simply rewind time, undo the horrors, find ourselves all as innocent babies again. Flyora finds himself stunned into stillness when confronted with the image of a helpless infant Hitler, struck by the innocence. Of course, we know exactly what the Nazi ideology does with babies: one of the German soldiers outlined his genocidal beliefs quite clearly a moment earlier. (Nostalgia and the regressive desire for order are also fascist, of course). The reversed footage is a childlike fantasy, but also functions as a reminder to the viewer that, again, you are watching film. It’s footage which can and is being manipulated, in order to manipulate you.
