Idi i smotri (1985)

Director:

Elem Klimov

Writers:

Ales Adamovich (screenplay)
Ales Adamovich (stories)

Release Date:

17 October 1985 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

A boy is unwillingly thrust into the atrocities of war in WWII Byelorussia, fighting for a hopelessly...

Plot Keywords:

WWII | Atrocity | Byelorussia | German Soldier | Airplane

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Aleksei Kravchenko	...	Florya Gaishun (as A. Kravchenko)
Olga Mironova	...	Glasha (as O. Mironova)
Liubomiras Lauciavicius	...	Kosach (as L. Lautsyavichius)
Vladas Bagdonas		(as V. Bagdonas)
Jüri Lumiste
Viktor Lorents		(as V. Lorents)
Kazimir Rabetsky		(as K. Rabetsky)
Yevgeni Tilicheyev		(as Ye. Tilicheyev)
Aleksandr Berda		(as A. Berda)
G. Velts
V. Vasilyev
Igor Gnevashev		(as I. Gnevashev)
Vasili Domrachyov		(as V. Domrachyov)
G. Yelkin
Ye. Kryzhanovsky

Also Known As:

Come and See (UK) (USA)
Иди и смотри (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Go and See

Runtime:

142 min | Argentina:146 min | Germany:146 min | USA:140 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Belarusian | Russian | German

Color:

Black and White (archive footage) | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:16 | UK:15 | France:U | Germany:16 (DVD rating) | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:16

Company:

Mosfilm

Trivia:

The director planned to have Aleksei Kravchenko hypnotized by a psychotherapist during the most dreadful and violent scenes so that they wouldn't affect his young mind. However Kravchenko turned out not to be susceptible to hypnosis and had to pretend all the way.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Several Germans can be see wielding MP or STG 44's which were not in service until summer 1944 (this film is set in 1943).

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 100 Greatest War Films (2005) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Die Walküre

charnel house in occupied Belarussia

I saw this movie many years ago and scenes still remain imprinted on my mind. Though it was still made in the USSR, in was made when the winds of glasnost were starting to well and truly blow. The movie whilst still sticking to the maxim that the Soviets were the good guys, nevertheless portrays the casual brutality of partisan warfare in a realistic unromantic way.

The SS "action" in the Belarussian village is one of the most disturbing depictions of the second world war ever directed outside of the real footage of these things. The SS troops are on a anti-partisan operation and enter the Belarussian village. The next 10-15 minutes remained in my memory for many years after. Though the suffering of the occupied peoples under Nazi's was often used for pro-Soviet propaganda in art and film, even if it was the case in this film, the sheer horror of these scenes transcends the political.

2 scenes are particularly powerful in this section of the film:

The scene were the SS officer lunches in a village hut, in front of a cowering peasant family, desperate to placate the soldiers, is quite terrifying and suspenseful and all the more effective for the violence that does eventually occur.

Secondly, at the end of the slaughter,the Nazi soldiers are seen laughing carry out on a bed an old bedridden blind babushka lady from a burning farmhouse. They make some horrible joke about saving her to be a breeder, and as the village burns behind her she is observed blindly staring into the smoke filled sky full of incomphrehensible terror.

From memory the movie does lapse into propaganda abit heavily at the end. Nevertheless at the end of the film the credits list the number of Belarussian villages destroyed (buildings and people)....I cant remember the exact number but it was hundreds and it is quite a sobering figure....regardless of the Soviet spin the film is valuable in shining a light into a dark corner of mans inhumanity to fellow man.