Come and See (1985)

True horror like this is a must-see for anyone interested in history. The monsters are not mindless zombies or vampires or aliens with green blood. The monsters are us; people corrupted by the Nazis just as any of us can be brainwashed to follow some tyrannical force under the right circumstances. Here the viewer is taken into hell from the point of view of a young Russian boy just trying to survive. It’s amazing to me that a film this realistically brutal could get made. Did any extras actually die making this film? It’s so ultra-real I felt like maybe director Elem Klimov took his actor, Aleksei Kravchenko, through a time machine and filmed him guerilla style. There are so many powerful awful moments of violence one could almost criticize the film for going so far. But events like the ones shown in this film happened. Innocent people died in the name of fascism and racism and just plan evil. If I knew everyone would have the same reaction I had to this nightmare I would make everyone watch it. Sadly even a brilliant yet disturbing film like this can’t change us. We are capable of being monsters. Grade: A