I watched “Idi i smotri (Come and See)” on my friend Freddie’s recommendation. It was odd to be watching a 1985 Soviet film about the harrowing experiences of Belorusian youth fighting the Germans during WWII on the 4th of July, However I’ve discharged my patriotic duty to see political satire earlier in the afternoon. There are no giant battle scenes, but the film makers create a powerful sense of the fear and fog of war. When the protagonist is disoriented after a bombing attack on his partisan camp, we hear the buzzing in his ears, and we can’t make out what the others are saying. Nearly all the scenes are shot in the dim light of dusk, dawn, or overcast — bluring the sense of the passage of time. Has the kid been on the road for days or months? It manages to deliver the same dread and terror that the first section of “Saving Private Ryan,” on a cheaper budget, and doesn’t switch gears into a genre war film. Some parts are heavy handed, but remember this is a Soviet film from the transition to ‘Glasnost’.
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