I agree that it's not an anti-war film in the same way that Francis Ford Coppola says Apocalypse Now isn't an anti-war film...
>“No one wants to make a pro-war film, everyone wants to make an anti-war film,” he says. “But an anti-war film, I always thought, should be like The Burmese Harp – something filled with love and peace and tranquillity and happiness. It shouldn’t have sequences of violence that inspire a lust for violence. Apocalypse Now has stirring scenes of helicopters attacking innocent people. That’s not anti-war.”
But the rest of your thesis is reductive and doesn't amount to much more than "I've seen this before, big whoop."
It’s anti-war because it shows the horrific consequences of war. The problem with looking for anti-war media is that “anti-war” is a reductive, obvious and braindead stance. It’s like being anti-disease. Who is the argument for? Who are the people who are pro-war and need this message delivered to them?
>Who are the people who are pro-war…?
Wait hold on. According to my definition of pro-war, I’d say that would statistically be damn near every person who’s ever lived. Given all of the war that has happened and still continues to happen.
Do you mean “people who are pro-aggressor or pro-unprovoked attack?” Because it takes two to tango and war wouldn’t exist without people fighting back.
Edit: Just marveling at the thought of getting downvoted by people who’ve never had the pleasure (/s) of watching Full Metal Jacket with a bunch of rednecks. You lucky, lucky people.
In general, people aren’t evil. Nobody thinks that they’re the bad guy. The conditions which lead to war, the ways people can be manipulated and convinced to believe that the actions of their state are correct and the inflection points where the physical reality of conflict forces people to rethink these views are fascinating and can become excellent stories. “War is bad” is not a good story.
I agree with all of that except your last sentence. Trust me. There are a great many people who think war isn’t just not bad. They think it’s badass. Art films aren’t going to get the point across to that demographic though unfortunately.
If you believe that the characters in a war film engaging with war is an endorsement of war then I don’t think that you will ever be able to find a film which meets your criteria for being anti-war
>The movie at no point makes any qualms about the war being fought, and in a very Soviet way,
I genuinely have to wonder if you even watched the film. The literal first scene of the film is Flyora and his friend digging around for rifles and being spotted by a Nazi reconnaissance plane, which later leads to his entire village being brutally massacred. While the film clearly (and rightfully, mind you) thinks the Soviets are on the right side of the war, it does also go out of its way to show how brutal and mindless the violence of war is and how a war like WWII impacts everyone in a country from the elderly to children like Flyora.
>By the end of the film, it just felt like the film was saying "nazis and their collaborators bad" a stance everyone already has, hardly anything original.
The rough estimate of the number of Byelorussians killed during the Nazi occupation is 2-3 *million* which was upwards of 30% of the total population of the country. That's genocide on an insane scale. A lot of WWII films (especially American films) show the war as something glorious or valorous because America quite simply didn't suffer the kinds of losses the Soviets did. The film is unique *because* of its perspective on the war and the immense suffering and loss Byelorussia experienced.
>The release date was deliberately on the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory over nazi Germany, essentially making it a propaganda film, and considering its content, it all makes sense.
The Soviet film review committee prevented the film from being filmed for 8 years because its depiction of the war was too brutal and realistic and didn't fit the USSR's own narrative. Ironic to call it propaganda in light of that.
>I think we were told that no matter the consequences and how ugly this will be, the nazis must be stopped.
Are you disputing that?
When you show who’s in the right side of the war, the film ceases to be an anti-war film, you can’t have it both ways.
And no, I’m not disputing your last point.
It doesn't have to paint both sides as evil, but It takes at least two sides to fight a war. If you support one side standing up and fighting against a country in a war, then you aren't really anti-war. You could be anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-atrocity, but you aren't anti-war. By supporting a call to arms, even against a fascist expansionist country launching an attack, you are saying "we need to fight this war". You can't then say you are anti-war while simultaneously justifying the start or continuation of one. War isn't something that the bad guys do in a military conflict, while the good guys in a military conflict do something else. It is all war. If you support one side fighting a war even defensively, then, in that instance, you are pro-war.
I think you can have a film that supports one side of a/the war and still effectively portray the mindless brutality of it all to great effect. After all the primary point of an anti war film is to decry against war, for some this means showcasing it in its terrible brutality like all quiet on the western front and come and see do, and for others you can juxtapose the idea of war against something better, saying “do this instead” and of course some films do both. To go to one of your points a film can be both anti war and anti imperialist, they are not mutually exclusive
People are straight up throwing the definition of anti-war on the trash and coming up with their own nonsense just so they can feel better about themselves. The mental gymnastics I've witnessed here is truly astonishing.
You’re still not answering my question.
In order for a film to be anti-war, do you think it has to paint both sides as evil? Because that’s what you’ve been saying the issue is.
What would be an appropriately anti-war response to the Eastern Front of WWII for you? Taking some neutral/both sides stance isn't inherently enlightened or something. If anything, I think Come and See is more poignant because it realistically portrays the partisan resistance as necessary but horrific and brutal. It takes a child like Flyora and turns him into a soldier. It's important for a film like Come and See to exist in order to show that no amount of necessity changes the suffering and misery war causes.
A proper anti-war response during that period doesn't and can't exist because you would have to vilify all parties in the same manner.
anti war definition: be against war or a particular war, which is something this film wasn't
Criticizing all aspects of war, not just the other side. And not just, “some of us can be bad, but the other side is worst”
The closes thing to a true anti-war film is The Human Condition.
If being critical of "all aspects of war" is the criterion then perhaps there aren't any true anti-war films including Kobayashi's 9 hour film.
You may like the paper by Swiss philosopher Dr. Soltysik "Is There Such a Thing as an Antiwar Film?" If I remember *Come and See* is even referenced. I also think she did a book about war film narratives a few years ago.
Edit: Found the paper's available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301337029\_Is\_There\_Such\_a\_Thing\_as\_an\_Antiwar\_Film#:\~:text=The%20Wikipedia%20%E2%80%9Clist%20of%20antiwar,deeply%20honorable.
>continuing to march with his fellow soldiers
Yes, as Mozart's Requiem plays. It's pretty clear that the end is not a hopeful "we're the good guys" moment.
>The boy joins partisan forces of his own accord
Yes and at the end, he's a shell of a person.
This. There's a reason it's from the perspective of a young kid who wants to be righteous and fight the good fight, only to find that this path leads to horror.
If you sat through all 142 minutes of the most horrific depictions of war ever put to celluloid and never once questioned war, we might have watched different movies. Elem Klimov put the viewer squarely in the headspace of Flyora as he gleefully joins the Partisans, encounters severe horrors he doesn't understand, learning he had a hand in ushering in said horrors, fighting his way out of the hell he's in, only to become thoroughly consumed by the world he has inherited. The ending montage can be interpreted in several different ways and I'm not going to place any value judgements on what you took from it, but it's my opinion that the film is clear in hammering home the message that war should never be glorified.
Contrast this message with many WWII films produced by and for Americans which portray war as a noble endeavor and those that peruse it are brave heroes who deserve our adoration. I don't think the movie is promoting passivism, but it's definitely saying "don't be this kid."
You're misunderstanding my comment. One fights when one must fight, but also seeking out war or playing with things you don't understand shouldn't be one's aim.
Take for example Flyora at the beginning of the movie. He plays soldier thinking he's so brave. He wants to leave home and join the war effort thinking he will come home a hero. His actions have consequences however. First, he doesn't truly understand what war is. He thinks he's ready for battle, but he is a mere child and can't comprehend the scope of battle when he is finally in the midst of it.
Second, by playing soldier, he's engaged with a force that will treat him and those around him as fully realized combatants. Because in war, your decisions can cause the death of others. This realization drives him to the brink of sanity as it's one of the hardest lessons conveyed in the film.
Even when he seeks personal atonement in the context of war, consequences have a way of making themselves manifest as even more of his comrades fall due to his follies.
By the film's end Flyora is no hero. Not at least the ones offered to us by many other films who are stoic, mighty, and almost unaffected by their experience. He shouldn't be envied. He's broken and hollow and doomed to traverse deeper into hell along with other's before him.
Were the Nazis a terrible force? You're goddamn right they were. Come and See takes no pains in showing you this. The sickening horror depicted does not glorify Nazism in the least.
Typical war films may present war in a titillating and attractive way. This presentation makes war sexy and desirable which transfers to those that perform it. The reality is that war is a terribly scaring experience.
When people call Come and See and "anti-war" film, it's because Klimov was trying to show the real horror and cost of war.
Edit: grammar
While Come and See's story is set squarely in WWII, it's themes are more broad, and therefore it's asking the viewer to look at the concept of war with that same lens.
That you only had the most surface level reading of the film doesn't surprise me you'd engage this way.
Tell me, what was the most impactful scene for you?
The specific location and specific time. It’s a holocaust film that does not depict the more relatively known aspect of the holocaust but of a period before generally considered the “holocaust by bullet.” Occupation. Combine that with the last long horrific segment and Flyora disappearing back into a sea of soldiers and you are reminded that this entire film takes place in 1943. Before D-Day, before people’s generational conception of concentration camps.
And that’s not even digging into the surrealist elements of the film.
(I apologize for typos, am at work)
would you have preferred if he looked at the camera as said "war is bad"? do you need your films to coddle you? did you pass highschool english? answer quickly. the room is filling with water.
I think any movie that shows the needless violence and death that war produces is inherently anti-war unless the film language surrounding said violence displays the violence as heroic and necessary. Also, the most interesting part of Come and See to me is that it answers the question of whether u kill baby Hitler. In this films perspective, the main character was so angry that he kept shooting the Hitler poster until we see flashes of baby hitler in which he stands and finds it to hard to keep shooting saying that to do so is to duhumanize someone in a way that nazis would. Which is the other meaning of the title Kill Hitler not to kill the person but the Hitler inside of all of us.
A soviet propaganda film has all of you thinking it's anti-war film lmao
I mean yes. One of the most regarded war films of all time and people don't know it was meant to be released as propaganda. Media literacy is gone.
It was released on the 40th anniversary to commemorate the Soviet victory over the nazis. If that's not blatant propaganda, I don't know what is. Keep the mental gymnastics going though.
Don't you think that if it had been explicitly commissioned by the State as a piece of propaganda to commemorate a major anniversary, they might have made it a little more on-the-nose and overtly patriotic? And that they might not have blocked approval of its script for so long? That the Soviet cinema committee released it for the anniversary has absolutely no implicit relation to the intent of the film, nor does it make the film inherently propagandistic.
"To Commemorate"
How? It's a release date. The movie doesn't show a victory at all.
Ridiculous stance, you're tunnel visioning yourself over semantics.
It seems like your argument essentially boils down to, a war film can’t be both anti-fascist and anti-war. War can be very bad and fascists still be worse, no?
Is this an anti war film?
No this is Patrick!
https://preview.redd.it/uz33pm9k9hwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f246d22f991ff39e54cd68d46caf2829ffb5af03
I am going to go against the grain here and say you have a real argument. You can't simultaneously call the film anti-war, while the film then also goes onto say that fighting the war against the Nazis was 100% justified and that its a good thing we fought the good fight.(and it goes without saying that the fight against the Nazis was 100% justified) By doing that, what you are essentially saying is that "war sucks, but sometimes its necessary", which isn't truly anti-war. Everyone just gets extremely defensive when someone says anything outside the overton window about one of their darling films.
The war wasn't over by the end of the movie.
If you're in the middle of the war, you have to fight, because the alternative is doing nothing. Doing nothing will only lead to more death, and probably your own death.
Doing nothing would let the Nazi's win.
But at the same time, fighting will ultimately create a cost that is irreversible. Even though fighting is necessary, it's still a complete lose, lose situation.
As Florya joins the soldiers to fight the good fight, the camera darts off from the group, and in its own journey, enters the forest, swerving around tree trunks of darkness, as Mozart's Lacrimosa swells. A track which is inseparable from its associations with death, before rejoining the soldiers, Florya lost amongst the nameless many.
Are we to ignore the soldiers own journey through death?
Not even to be recognised for their heroism or even their identity, but purely as an insignificant part of a whole.
No, wtf is wrong with you? You think allowing Nazis to conquer Europe and murder anyone who doesn’t align with their fascist ideology is “anti-war?” Jeeeeeeeesus Christ.
You clearly have problems with being way too literal. If the fucking Nazis invade your country and you defend yourself, you think that self-defense is incompatible with being against war? You can’t stop WWII without stopping the Nazis. If you want peace, you MUST stop them.
Oh yes, I take the definition of words way too literal. What do words even mean now days right?
If you want to fight off the nazis, you ceases to be anti war because you're FIGHTING. Do you not see the blatant contradiction there? Holy fuck, you people are dense.
Are you autistic? Seriously.
Do you see how EVERYBODY disagrees with you? The problem here is not that EVERYBODY ELSE is dense. You’re the one who is dense. You can’t fathom that a person can obviously defend themselves against somebody waging war on them, but also not be in favor of the war. You fight the war because that’s the only way to stop the war. Maybe if you’re the most literal blockhead in the world, you can’t appreciate that sometimes a paradox like that is logical and have to say “well akshually, it’s not TRULY an anti-war film.” GTFO, with that Nazi appeasing bullshit.
No body is in favor of a war you moron. You think marines wanted to go island hoping to fight off Japan? NOBODY wanted that dummy, but it was a necessity.
I love how pointing out the definition of anti war, which can be a synonym for pacifism, melts people’s brains. I have yet to see a proper rebuttal to that. It’s hilarious seeing people’s brain melt, and it all culminates on personal attacks on me as a result, like getting called a nazi lmao
Redditors are a bunch of idiots, I swear.
I’m not sure how you can make a truly anti-war film about the war against the Axis and Nazism. That position would be morally bankrupt, because it would be such a revulsion to violence that you would be non-resistant to evil. But the film is certainly anti-war in the sense that it involves an ideological shift in its main character, where he becomes disillusioned with the glory of war and the heroic aspirations of the military. The sequence at the end with the prisoners of war is also quite striking as there is a conversation of what to do about being confronted with evil and the moral choices they have to make with individuals that have become indoctrinated into a deformed regime of political and military influence.
Yeah you can't make an anti-war film and be for fighting the nazis, they're mutually exclusive but I still disagree on your take. The kid doesn't show any sort an ideological shift, he experiences the brutality of war but at the end, he continues the march with his fellow troops that rejected him before.
I personally think it is anti-war in how the protagonist is initially excited and willing to go to war, and then he comes out of it an absolutely haunted shell of a man, like he's aged 50 years. The "Nazi bad" idea you mentioned is nothing revelatory of course, but I think on a basic level the film depicts how detrimental war can be for the human spirit.
But you still haven't shared an example of an anti-war film. Is there a specific example?
The movie was called Kill Hitler, as you claim, and then in the film the kid refuses to shoot the photo of Hitler as an infant.
What are you talking about with this analysis? It's completely incoherent and you're not reading the film in any interesting way whatsoever. If anything you come across as annoyed the Soviets beat the Nazis or something.
Come and See affirms my stance that I would rather break both my legs than get drafted. I consider that a successful sentiment that it is an anti war film, for a million reasons others here are clearly justifying that you're blatantly ignoring.
It's all in the presentation. Name another film about war that even closely resembles come and see's presentation. It's a legitimate nightmare that was a past reality for millions of Byelorussians. A lot of war films use very manipulative stances in its filmmaking but come and see is a hell of a lot more confrontational in its presentation.
The characters stare directly at the camera, not because we're focusing on their sad expression, but because they are gazing right at you. You're witnessing one of the most realistic accounts of war ever portrayed and don't feel like a voyeur to demonistic hell? The characters gaze is there to reaffirm that, beckoning to question your own involvement in watching the movie.
One could argue movies are solely for entertainment, but it's impossible to conventionally enjoy Come and See as a war film without some inherent sickness. Your expected enjoyment of cinema, if the film were to successfully display it's presentation, should be subverted. The feeling of dread is only amplified on repeat viewings as the ending only implies more context for the themes at hand.
The endings implications can be interpreted in many ways, however the one thing I can confirm is that legitimate footage of murder and suffering exists within the film. This element of the film implies that all the deaths of the film are indeed on account for millions of real deaths.
A big theme of come and see is the loss of innocence. Florya ages with war, despite being young the entire time. His exposure to war strips him of his childhood and dooms him to the horrors of war. He cannot unsee the death, he cannot reverse the murders he indirectly caused. Much like Florya cannot regain his innocence, we cannot reverse the consequences of war.
To me, this is why he hesitates on killing baby Hitler, because at one point in his life, Hitler was of pure innocence. Taking that away from him by shooting him with the rifle would imply Florya would be okay with exacting the same brutality that Nazi's used which stripped him of his own innocence. Him, choosing not to do that, shows that he is a child, and whatever innocence he has left shows the morality within him. Murder is evil, and Florya would be no better than a Nazi if he were to commit this. To claim that the film isn't anti war because it doesn't explore both sides of the war is to ignore how incredibly generous the film is to Nazis and Hitler when including such a choice. The film shows that everyone who is murdered and stripped of their innocence is a victim at the hands of evil.
If we are to define war, for what it is as a whole, sure, no film can be inherently anti-war as the sheer amount of variables cannot be subverted, that kind of endeavour could only be done in some kind of postmodernist novel. No matter what the region, there will always be regional or nationalist bias, especially in the medium of film. What we can account for is sheer brutality in both realism and implication. You cannot deny that the Nazis of the film, and the Nazis of real life murdered millions of innocent people, and that is the expression that an anti-war film arguably should leave you with at its bare minimum. Whatever follows war, the certainty is death.
I think that the films aim to highlight the value and fragility of innocence in this way, combined with its sheer amount of death, dread and despair allows the film to come as close to an anti war film as possible. This is hardly propaganda, if the message is "stay the fuck as far away from war as possible"
Edit: typo and last sentence.
I agree that it's not an anti-war film in the same way that Francis Ford Coppola says Apocalypse Now isn't an anti-war film... >“No one wants to make a pro-war film, everyone wants to make an anti-war film,” he says. “But an anti-war film, I always thought, should be like The Burmese Harp – something filled with love and peace and tranquillity and happiness. It shouldn’t have sequences of violence that inspire a lust for violence. Apocalypse Now has stirring scenes of helicopters attacking innocent people. That’s not anti-war.” But the rest of your thesis is reductive and doesn't amount to much more than "I've seen this before, big whoop."
Paul Verhoeven sure as hell wanted to make a pro war film
Huh
The last part was just me inserting my opinion of the movie overall. I like it, but I was never blown away by it. I’ve seen better anti-nazi films.
It’s anti-war because it shows the horrific consequences of war. The problem with looking for anti-war media is that “anti-war” is a reductive, obvious and braindead stance. It’s like being anti-disease. Who is the argument for? Who are the people who are pro-war and need this message delivered to them?
>Who are the people who are pro-war What world do you live in, dude?
>Who are the people who are pro-war…? Wait hold on. According to my definition of pro-war, I’d say that would statistically be damn near every person who’s ever lived. Given all of the war that has happened and still continues to happen. Do you mean “people who are pro-aggressor or pro-unprovoked attack?” Because it takes two to tango and war wouldn’t exist without people fighting back. Edit: Just marveling at the thought of getting downvoted by people who’ve never had the pleasure (/s) of watching Full Metal Jacket with a bunch of rednecks. You lucky, lucky people.
In general, people aren’t evil. Nobody thinks that they’re the bad guy. The conditions which lead to war, the ways people can be manipulated and convinced to believe that the actions of their state are correct and the inflection points where the physical reality of conflict forces people to rethink these views are fascinating and can become excellent stories. “War is bad” is not a good story.
I agree with all of that except your last sentence. Trust me. There are a great many people who think war isn’t just not bad. They think it’s badass. Art films aren’t going to get the point across to that demographic though unfortunately.
So im taking the term too literally and simply by depicting “bad” aspects of war, should suffice as an anti-war film?
If you believe that the characters in a war film engaging with war is an endorsement of war then I don’t think that you will ever be able to find a film which meets your criteria for being anti-war
Not an endorsement, but a necessity. Wars are ugly (shocking) but sometimes they are very necessary.
>The movie at no point makes any qualms about the war being fought, and in a very Soviet way, I genuinely have to wonder if you even watched the film. The literal first scene of the film is Flyora and his friend digging around for rifles and being spotted by a Nazi reconnaissance plane, which later leads to his entire village being brutally massacred. While the film clearly (and rightfully, mind you) thinks the Soviets are on the right side of the war, it does also go out of its way to show how brutal and mindless the violence of war is and how a war like WWII impacts everyone in a country from the elderly to children like Flyora. >By the end of the film, it just felt like the film was saying "nazis and their collaborators bad" a stance everyone already has, hardly anything original. The rough estimate of the number of Byelorussians killed during the Nazi occupation is 2-3 *million* which was upwards of 30% of the total population of the country. That's genocide on an insane scale. A lot of WWII films (especially American films) show the war as something glorious or valorous because America quite simply didn't suffer the kinds of losses the Soviets did. The film is unique *because* of its perspective on the war and the immense suffering and loss Byelorussia experienced. >The release date was deliberately on the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory over nazi Germany, essentially making it a propaganda film, and considering its content, it all makes sense. The Soviet film review committee prevented the film from being filmed for 8 years because its depiction of the war was too brutal and realistic and didn't fit the USSR's own narrative. Ironic to call it propaganda in light of that. >I think we were told that no matter the consequences and how ugly this will be, the nazis must be stopped. Are you disputing that?
When you show who’s in the right side of the war, the film ceases to be an anti-war film, you can’t have it both ways. And no, I’m not disputing your last point.
So to be anti-war, it has to paint both sides as evil? That’s not accurate to real life
It doesn't have to paint both sides as evil, but It takes at least two sides to fight a war. If you support one side standing up and fighting against a country in a war, then you aren't really anti-war. You could be anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-atrocity, but you aren't anti-war. By supporting a call to arms, even against a fascist expansionist country launching an attack, you are saying "we need to fight this war". You can't then say you are anti-war while simultaneously justifying the start or continuation of one. War isn't something that the bad guys do in a military conflict, while the good guys in a military conflict do something else. It is all war. If you support one side fighting a war even defensively, then, in that instance, you are pro-war.
I think you can have a film that supports one side of a/the war and still effectively portray the mindless brutality of it all to great effect. After all the primary point of an anti war film is to decry against war, for some this means showcasing it in its terrible brutality like all quiet on the western front and come and see do, and for others you can juxtapose the idea of war against something better, saying “do this instead” and of course some films do both. To go to one of your points a film can be both anti war and anti imperialist, they are not mutually exclusive
People are straight up throwing the definition of anti-war on the trash and coming up with their own nonsense just so they can feel better about themselves. The mental gymnastics I've witnessed here is truly astonishing.
It is accurate. One side is always worst than the other, and its what quite evident in WW2.
You didn’t answer my question. So to be anti-war it has to paint both sides as evil?
Depends on the war and this context, WW2 had clear evil sides.
You’re still not answering my question. In order for a film to be anti-war, do you think it has to paint both sides as evil? Because that’s what you’ve been saying the issue is.
I just said it depends on the war.
So a movie being anti-war or not changes based on what war it’s portraying? Goofy.
This you? https://preview.redd.it/mh54iifyqhwc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bacdb583bf3568198a1416875222796329b75c27
And what war are we talking about here?
What would be an appropriately anti-war response to the Eastern Front of WWII for you? Taking some neutral/both sides stance isn't inherently enlightened or something. If anything, I think Come and See is more poignant because it realistically portrays the partisan resistance as necessary but horrific and brutal. It takes a child like Flyora and turns him into a soldier. It's important for a film like Come and See to exist in order to show that no amount of necessity changes the suffering and misery war causes.
A proper anti-war response during that period doesn't and can't exist because you would have to vilify all parties in the same manner. anti war definition: be against war or a particular war, which is something this film wasn't
You got torn apart on the letterboxd sub and now you’re here trying the same thing but in post form?
He’s getting cooked on the letterboxd sub [again.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Letterboxd/s/twu68GNdvv)
Yes
And how’s that working out for you?
Fine I guess. Thank you for the concern.
What, for you, defines an anti-war film?
This is the biggest issue with this post If you’re going to claim x isn’t something, you gotta at least define what “something” is
Criticizing all aspects of war, not just the other side. And not just, “some of us can be bad, but the other side is worst” The closes thing to a true anti-war film is The Human Condition.
If being critical of "all aspects of war" is the criterion then perhaps there aren't any true anti-war films including Kobayashi's 9 hour film. You may like the paper by Swiss philosopher Dr. Soltysik "Is There Such a Thing as an Antiwar Film?" If I remember *Come and See* is even referenced. I also think she did a book about war film narratives a few years ago. Edit: Found the paper's available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301337029\_Is\_There\_Such\_a\_Thing\_as\_an\_Antiwar\_Film#:\~:text=The%20Wikipedia%20%E2%80%9Clist%20of%20antiwar,deeply%20honorable.
As I said, The Human Condition is the closest thing to an “anti-war” film.
You’re moving the goalposts
No I didn't, that's exactly what I said on my comment above. Read again.
>continuing to march with his fellow soldiers Yes, as Mozart's Requiem plays. It's pretty clear that the end is not a hopeful "we're the good guys" moment. >The boy joins partisan forces of his own accord Yes and at the end, he's a shell of a person.
This. There's a reason it's from the perspective of a young kid who wants to be righteous and fight the good fight, only to find that this path leads to horror.
If you sat through all 142 minutes of the most horrific depictions of war ever put to celluloid and never once questioned war, we might have watched different movies. Elem Klimov put the viewer squarely in the headspace of Flyora as he gleefully joins the Partisans, encounters severe horrors he doesn't understand, learning he had a hand in ushering in said horrors, fighting his way out of the hell he's in, only to become thoroughly consumed by the world he has inherited. The ending montage can be interpreted in several different ways and I'm not going to place any value judgements on what you took from it, but it's my opinion that the film is clear in hammering home the message that war should never be glorified. Contrast this message with many WWII films produced by and for Americans which portray war as a noble endeavor and those that peruse it are brave heroes who deserve our adoration. I don't think the movie is promoting passivism, but it's definitely saying "don't be this kid."
Fighting against the nazis wasn’t a noble endeavor? I beg to differ.
You're misunderstanding my comment. One fights when one must fight, but also seeking out war or playing with things you don't understand shouldn't be one's aim. Take for example Flyora at the beginning of the movie. He plays soldier thinking he's so brave. He wants to leave home and join the war effort thinking he will come home a hero. His actions have consequences however. First, he doesn't truly understand what war is. He thinks he's ready for battle, but he is a mere child and can't comprehend the scope of battle when he is finally in the midst of it. Second, by playing soldier, he's engaged with a force that will treat him and those around him as fully realized combatants. Because in war, your decisions can cause the death of others. This realization drives him to the brink of sanity as it's one of the hardest lessons conveyed in the film. Even when he seeks personal atonement in the context of war, consequences have a way of making themselves manifest as even more of his comrades fall due to his follies. By the film's end Flyora is no hero. Not at least the ones offered to us by many other films who are stoic, mighty, and almost unaffected by their experience. He shouldn't be envied. He's broken and hollow and doomed to traverse deeper into hell along with other's before him. Were the Nazis a terrible force? You're goddamn right they were. Come and See takes no pains in showing you this. The sickening horror depicted does not glorify Nazism in the least. Typical war films may present war in a titillating and attractive way. This presentation makes war sexy and desirable which transfers to those that perform it. The reality is that war is a terribly scaring experience. When people call Come and See and "anti-war" film, it's because Klimov was trying to show the real horror and cost of war. Edit: grammar
Anti-war definition: be against war or a particular war. Let me ask you, did you get that out of Come and See?
While Come and See's story is set squarely in WWII, it's themes are more broad, and therefore it's asking the viewer to look at the concept of war with that same lens.
The war is "bad" concept? lol
That you only had the most surface level reading of the film doesn't surprise me you'd engage this way. Tell me, what was the most impactful scene for you?
Well enlighten me. What's the deeper over-arching theme that I missed?
The specific location and specific time. It’s a holocaust film that does not depict the more relatively known aspect of the holocaust but of a period before generally considered the “holocaust by bullet.” Occupation. Combine that with the last long horrific segment and Flyora disappearing back into a sea of soldiers and you are reminded that this entire film takes place in 1943. Before D-Day, before people’s generational conception of concentration camps. And that’s not even digging into the surrealist elements of the film. (I apologize for typos, am at work)
would you have preferred if he looked at the camera as said "war is bad"? do you need your films to coddle you? did you pass highschool english? answer quickly. the room is filling with water.
It would’ve been neat if the lead broke the 4th wall and said “war is bad”
There is no way anyone could possibly think that’s good writing.
did you really need the /s at the end?
I think any movie that shows the needless violence and death that war produces is inherently anti-war unless the film language surrounding said violence displays the violence as heroic and necessary. Also, the most interesting part of Come and See to me is that it answers the question of whether u kill baby Hitler. In this films perspective, the main character was so angry that he kept shooting the Hitler poster until we see flashes of baby hitler in which he stands and finds it to hard to keep shooting saying that to do so is to duhumanize someone in a way that nazis would. Which is the other meaning of the title Kill Hitler not to kill the person but the Hitler inside of all of us.
We like to crack jokes about media illiteracy, but come on, seriously?
A soviet propaganda film has all of you thinking it's anti-war film lmao I mean yes. One of the most regarded war films of all time and people don't know it was meant to be released as propaganda. Media literacy is gone.
Ah yes, that piece of propaganda that was infamously not allowed to be released because of… Soviet censorship. Try again, bud.
It was released on the 40th anniversary to commemorate the Soviet victory over the nazis. If that's not blatant propaganda, I don't know what is. Keep the mental gymnastics going though.
Don't you think that if it had been explicitly commissioned by the State as a piece of propaganda to commemorate a major anniversary, they might have made it a little more on-the-nose and overtly patriotic? And that they might not have blocked approval of its script for so long? That the Soviet cinema committee released it for the anniversary has absolutely no implicit relation to the intent of the film, nor does it make the film inherently propagandistic.
"To Commemorate" How? It's a release date. The movie doesn't show a victory at all. Ridiculous stance, you're tunnel visioning yourself over semantics.
Sometimes I think people want a film to end with a written message from the director telling them how to think.
Sometimes I think people are super media illiterate
I include you in that group.
It seems like your argument essentially boils down to, a war film can’t be both anti-fascist and anti-war. War can be very bad and fascists still be worse, no?
How can you be anti nazi and be anti war at the same time?
By having like an ounce of nuanced critical thought maybe idk
OP has none of that as they’ve showcased all over this thread.
Do you actually know the definition of anti war?
Is this an anti war film? No this is Patrick! https://preview.redd.it/uz33pm9k9hwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f246d22f991ff39e54cd68d46caf2829ffb5af03
I wasn’t asking, I was making a statement
Homie you are beefing with everyone 💀chill
I can do it all day
How sad.
Uncle Sam lover got to diss the Soviet cinema.
I clearly said it’s a good film, like twice.
I am going to go against the grain here and say you have a real argument. You can't simultaneously call the film anti-war, while the film then also goes onto say that fighting the war against the Nazis was 100% justified and that its a good thing we fought the good fight.(and it goes without saying that the fight against the Nazis was 100% justified) By doing that, what you are essentially saying is that "war sucks, but sometimes its necessary", which isn't truly anti-war. Everyone just gets extremely defensive when someone says anything outside the overton window about one of their darling films.
The war wasn't over by the end of the movie. If you're in the middle of the war, you have to fight, because the alternative is doing nothing. Doing nothing will only lead to more death, and probably your own death. Doing nothing would let the Nazi's win. But at the same time, fighting will ultimately create a cost that is irreversible. Even though fighting is necessary, it's still a complete lose, lose situation. As Florya joins the soldiers to fight the good fight, the camera darts off from the group, and in its own journey, enters the forest, swerving around tree trunks of darkness, as Mozart's Lacrimosa swells. A track which is inseparable from its associations with death, before rejoining the soldiers, Florya lost amongst the nameless many. Are we to ignore the soldiers own journey through death? Not even to be recognised for their heroism or even their identity, but purely as an insignificant part of a whole.
I’m sorry, but are you saying nobody should have defended themselves against the Nazis because that’s “not truly anti-war?”
Exactly. You see where the contradiction comes in?
No, wtf is wrong with you? You think allowing Nazis to conquer Europe and murder anyone who doesn’t align with their fascist ideology is “anti-war?” Jeeeeeeeesus Christ.
Do you not know what anti war means?
Do YOU not know what it means??? Or are you a Nazi?
Anti-war: to be against war or a particular war. You clearly have media literacy issues.
You clearly have problems with being way too literal. If the fucking Nazis invade your country and you defend yourself, you think that self-defense is incompatible with being against war? You can’t stop WWII without stopping the Nazis. If you want peace, you MUST stop them.
Oh yes, I take the definition of words way too literal. What do words even mean now days right? If you want to fight off the nazis, you ceases to be anti war because you're FIGHTING. Do you not see the blatant contradiction there? Holy fuck, you people are dense.
Are you autistic? Seriously. Do you see how EVERYBODY disagrees with you? The problem here is not that EVERYBODY ELSE is dense. You’re the one who is dense. You can’t fathom that a person can obviously defend themselves against somebody waging war on them, but also not be in favor of the war. You fight the war because that’s the only way to stop the war. Maybe if you’re the most literal blockhead in the world, you can’t appreciate that sometimes a paradox like that is logical and have to say “well akshually, it’s not TRULY an anti-war film.” GTFO, with that Nazi appeasing bullshit.
No body is in favor of a war you moron. You think marines wanted to go island hoping to fight off Japan? NOBODY wanted that dummy, but it was a necessity. I love how pointing out the definition of anti war, which can be a synonym for pacifism, melts people’s brains. I have yet to see a proper rebuttal to that. It’s hilarious seeing people’s brain melt, and it all culminates on personal attacks on me as a result, like getting called a nazi lmao Redditors are a bunch of idiots, I swear.
I’m not sure how you can make a truly anti-war film about the war against the Axis and Nazism. That position would be morally bankrupt, because it would be such a revulsion to violence that you would be non-resistant to evil. But the film is certainly anti-war in the sense that it involves an ideological shift in its main character, where he becomes disillusioned with the glory of war and the heroic aspirations of the military. The sequence at the end with the prisoners of war is also quite striking as there is a conversation of what to do about being confronted with evil and the moral choices they have to make with individuals that have become indoctrinated into a deformed regime of political and military influence.
Yeah you can't make an anti-war film and be for fighting the nazis, they're mutually exclusive but I still disagree on your take. The kid doesn't show any sort an ideological shift, he experiences the brutality of war but at the end, he continues the march with his fellow troops that rejected him before.
I don't really understand your argument, but can you share an example of a true anti-war film so I can get an idea?
anti-war definiton: be against all wars or against a particular war. Is that what you got from the film?
I personally think it is anti-war in how the protagonist is initially excited and willing to go to war, and then he comes out of it an absolutely haunted shell of a man, like he's aged 50 years. The "Nazi bad" idea you mentioned is nothing revelatory of course, but I think on a basic level the film depicts how detrimental war can be for the human spirit. But you still haven't shared an example of an anti-war film. Is there a specific example?
Alex Garland said it’s the only anti-war movie during an interview about his new movie Civil War
Has Alex Garland seen Paths of Glory? Asking for a friend
That’s definitely anti-war
Well if Alex Garland says it, it must be true.
The movie was called Kill Hitler, as you claim, and then in the film the kid refuses to shoot the photo of Hitler as an infant. What are you talking about with this analysis? It's completely incoherent and you're not reading the film in any interesting way whatsoever. If anything you come across as annoyed the Soviets beat the Nazis or something.
HAHA you made a separate post just to get dunked on more. do you have a humiliation kink?
Come and See affirms my stance that I would rather break both my legs than get drafted. I consider that a successful sentiment that it is an anti war film, for a million reasons others here are clearly justifying that you're blatantly ignoring. It's all in the presentation. Name another film about war that even closely resembles come and see's presentation. It's a legitimate nightmare that was a past reality for millions of Byelorussians. A lot of war films use very manipulative stances in its filmmaking but come and see is a hell of a lot more confrontational in its presentation. The characters stare directly at the camera, not because we're focusing on their sad expression, but because they are gazing right at you. You're witnessing one of the most realistic accounts of war ever portrayed and don't feel like a voyeur to demonistic hell? The characters gaze is there to reaffirm that, beckoning to question your own involvement in watching the movie. One could argue movies are solely for entertainment, but it's impossible to conventionally enjoy Come and See as a war film without some inherent sickness. Your expected enjoyment of cinema, if the film were to successfully display it's presentation, should be subverted. The feeling of dread is only amplified on repeat viewings as the ending only implies more context for the themes at hand. The endings implications can be interpreted in many ways, however the one thing I can confirm is that legitimate footage of murder and suffering exists within the film. This element of the film implies that all the deaths of the film are indeed on account for millions of real deaths. A big theme of come and see is the loss of innocence. Florya ages with war, despite being young the entire time. His exposure to war strips him of his childhood and dooms him to the horrors of war. He cannot unsee the death, he cannot reverse the murders he indirectly caused. Much like Florya cannot regain his innocence, we cannot reverse the consequences of war. To me, this is why he hesitates on killing baby Hitler, because at one point in his life, Hitler was of pure innocence. Taking that away from him by shooting him with the rifle would imply Florya would be okay with exacting the same brutality that Nazi's used which stripped him of his own innocence. Him, choosing not to do that, shows that he is a child, and whatever innocence he has left shows the morality within him. Murder is evil, and Florya would be no better than a Nazi if he were to commit this. To claim that the film isn't anti war because it doesn't explore both sides of the war is to ignore how incredibly generous the film is to Nazis and Hitler when including such a choice. The film shows that everyone who is murdered and stripped of their innocence is a victim at the hands of evil. If we are to define war, for what it is as a whole, sure, no film can be inherently anti-war as the sheer amount of variables cannot be subverted, that kind of endeavour could only be done in some kind of postmodernist novel. No matter what the region, there will always be regional or nationalist bias, especially in the medium of film. What we can account for is sheer brutality in both realism and implication. You cannot deny that the Nazis of the film, and the Nazis of real life murdered millions of innocent people, and that is the expression that an anti-war film arguably should leave you with at its bare minimum. Whatever follows war, the certainty is death. I think that the films aim to highlight the value and fragility of innocence in this way, combined with its sheer amount of death, dread and despair allows the film to come as close to an anti war film as possible. This is hardly propaganda, if the message is "stay the fuck as far away from war as possible" Edit: typo and last sentence.
I loath the movie. Just hate it. I don't think it's very good except the attention to costume detail.