Come and See - The Criterion Collection (Blu‑ray)

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.

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