Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Come and See is a film that is not for everybody, but at the same time a film that everybody should see. This is one of those movies that once you see it it will haunt you forever, so I will definitely say be warned. I'd heard about Come and See for years from critics and other film fans, but have never gotten around to seeing it due to the disturbing nature of the film. There's never a perfect time to see a movie like this after all. But I saw that Criterion was set to release this soon so I thought it would be a great time to give it a watch. I'm glad I did. The film is indeed haunting for reasons you will expect, and some you might not. The story itself is a very sad and gruesome one, and should be told in the way the director tells it here. It's a Mass Requiem--Full of poetry and horror. Similar to a lot of holocaust films and literature. There are images here that will never leave me. Not just for their horror but also their particularity. In one scene a female Nazi bites off part of a lobster as she indifferently watches hundreds of people burn to death in a giant barn. In another two kids hide out in a lush forest, living for one short morning in a strange, Eden like landscape while an ominous bird frequently crosses their path. Some of these scenes feel so full of details that you know some one had to experience them firsthand. I was reminded of Tim O'Brien's The Things they Carried. A lot has been said about the disturbing nature of the film. But to call the film disturbing or haunting just doesn't do it justice. No words do it justice. And I think that's the point. Can you really describe hell once you've experienced it for yourself? Everything that happens here, happened in the past--and all the actors are channeling the ghosts of the tortured past. This is not a pleasant film by any means. I've seen many a disturbing movie in my time (Salo, Requiem for a Dream, Irreversible) and this ranks among the very top--Not just in content, but in tone. There's something truly ominous and nasty lurking under the surface of this movie. I've seen many war films that are sad, disturbing, brutal, depressing. But this one's almost downright scary. It's a film that does everything to break apart your naive perceptions of war as something heroic or hopeful, and replaces those perceptions with a nightmare out of a Samuel Beckett play where all meaning is lost except savage cruelty. I've also seen quite a few war/Holocaust films--Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Platoon, Ivan's Childhood, Sophie's Choice etc, All amazing movies by the way, but none affected me quite as strongly as this one did. Seriously you guys, I had to stay in bed the rest of the day after watching this. My theory is that it's because this one centers so much on the personal experience of an innocent child, and also it refuses to cutaway from, distance itself, or "pretty up" the horrific violence seen in war. For instance, The film's centerpiece is a Nazi invasion of a small Jewish village. The meticulousness of this sequence is both commendable and hellish. The way the Nazi's toyed with their victim's emotions, and celebrated the carnage as if it were a carnival really goes to show that humanity's brutal cannibalistic ways are not as far behind us as we thought. They are still right here in the present, disguised as the past. This is the deeply uncomfortable truth that Come and see shows us, and the ultimate result is one of the most devastating and powerful experiences that anyone can ever have at the movies. Please Enter at your own risk.