Come and See

COME AND SEE is a powerful, disturbing film, but I'm not sure it earns that power more through storytelling or casting.

The film is about the Beylorussian partisans of WWII. The element that makes the film so powerful is its lead character, a boy of about 13 who's played by one of the most gifted child actors I've ever seen. In the early stage of the film, he's eager to join the grownups and begin the adventure this war is sure to be. As horror piles upon horror, his reserves of courage and optimism slowly burn away as he turns into an ancient man, old beyond his years and bereft of hope. Aleksei Kravchenko, the young actor who plays this character, is absolutely extraordinary. Sure, the makeup helps us see him age, but the real drama is in his eyes.

The movie's photography is proficient, but it really shines in the area of sound design and scoring. 'Come and See' isn't afraid of ambient noise, and it isn't afraid of music that fades in and out, varying in appropriateness but never in impact. The movie showed me plenty, but it sold me with what it let me hear.

Would I have responded to COME AND SEE so strongly had its protagonist been 25? I don't know, but I do know that I was moved by what I saw. 'Come and See' took me to another place, a terrible place, and it did so effectively and without bombast. This is a very effective film.