Elem Klimov

Come and See

Come and See

This legendary film from Soviet director Elem Klimov is a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in what is now known as Belarus, teenage Flyora (Alexei Kravchenko, in a searing depiction of anguish) eagerly joins the Soviet resistance. Rather than the adventure and glory he envisioned, what he finds is a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty—rendered with a feverish, otherworldly intensity by Klimov’s subjective camera work and expressionistic sound design. Nearly blocked from being made by Soviet censors, who took seven years to approve its script, Come and See is perhaps the most visceral, impossible-to-forget antiwar film ever made.

Film Info

  • Soviet Union
  • 1985
  • 142 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.37:1
  • Russian, German
  • Spine #1035

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New interview with cinematographer Roger Deakins
  • New interview with director Elem Klimov’s brother and frequent collaborator German Klimov
  • Three 1975 films from Flaming Memory, a documentary series by Viktor Dashuk featuring firsthand accounts of survivors of the genocide during World War II in what is now known as Belarus
  • Interview from 2001 with Elem Klimov
  • Interviews from 2001 with actor Alexei Kravchenko and production designer Viktor Petrov
  • The Story of the Film “Come and See,” a 1985 short film featuring interviews with Klimov, Kravchenko, and writer Ales Adamovich
  • Theatrical rerelease trailer
  • PLUS: Essays by critic Mark Le Fanu and poet Valzhyna Mort

New cover by Jaxon Northon

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New interview with cinematographer Roger Deakins
  • New interview with director Elem Klimov’s brother and frequent collaborator German Klimov
  • Three 1975 films from Flaming Memory, a documentary series by Viktor Dashuk featuring firsthand accounts of survivors of the genocide during World War II in what is now known as Belarus
  • Interview from 2001 with Elem Klimov
  • Interviews from 2001 with actor Alexei Kravchenko and production designer Viktor Petrov
  • The Story of the Film “Come and See,” a 1985 short film featuring interviews with Klimov, Kravchenko, and writer Ales Adamovich
  • Theatrical rerelease trailer
  • PLUS: Essays by critic Mark Le Fanu and poet Valzhyna Mort

New cover by Jaxon Northon

Come and See
Cast
Alexei Kravchenko
Flyora
Olga Mironova
Glasha
Liubomiras Laucevicius
Kosach
Vladas Bagdonas
Rubezh
Evgeniy Tilicheev
Ukrainian collaborator
Viktors Lorencs
German commander
Jüri Lumiste
Young German officer
Credits
Director
Elem Klimov
Screenplay
Ales Adamovich
Screenplay
Elem Klimov
Cinematography
Alexei Rodionov
Music
Oleg Yanchenko
Editor
Valeriya Belova
Production design
Viktor Petrov
Costume design
Eleonora Semyonova
Sound
Viktor Mors
Production
Mosfilm
Production
Belarusfilm Studios

Current

Come and See: Orphans of the Storm
Come and See: Orphans of the Storm

With extraordinary immediacy, Elem Klimov’s magisterial final film brings to life the barbarity of war, a subject of which the director had firsthand knowledge.

By Mark Le Fanu

Read and See: Ales Adamovich and Literature out of Fire
Read and See: Ales Adamovich and Literature out of Fire

In postwar Belarus, where documents were either inaccessible or had been destroyed, the cowriter of Come and See pioneered a new form of literature sourced from the nightmarish testimonies of survivors.

By Valzhyna Mort

Pietro Marcello’s Top 10
Pietro Marcello’s Top 10

The director of Martin Eden chooses a selection of films dear to his heart, including classics that made a deep impression on him in childhood.