Depressing, Unstructured, Incohesive, Poorly directed, Overrated Rabble.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Come and See
supadude2004 — 11 years ago(November 29, 2014 04:00 AM)
Firstly, the greatest war movies ever made include these:
Deer Hunter.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Schindlers List,
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Paths To Glory
All of the above movies have strong, emotive and extremely compelling screenplays, which drives each of the above movies forward to plausbile conclusions.
This movie, its English title being "Come and See", lacks the necessary structure, cohesiveness, narrative mastery of a truly great movie; nor is it compelling in any way. Even its 'Mozartian' soundtracks seems awkwadly misplaced. So why people have rated it at '8.2/10' is a 'boat that left me on the shore' mystery - without an iota of explanation!?
Don't get me wrong! it's not as if I'm some pleb who only likes loud bangs, car chases and the likes of 'Trashformers'. No. I appreciate cinema as an artform, and so can watch a movie like Bella Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" and appreciate the mastery of his direction, but this movie is nothing like as interesting as Tarr's dystopian world. Moreover, and in a thematic sense, it loosely evokes Tarr's most overrated, and ridiculously long 'Satantango' - a movie which, just as thoroughly, rambles on and on, while making no concession towards the very most basic premises of the world's greatest movies: effortless plausibility and compelling sense.
In contrast, "Come and See" figuratively stinks of effortless implausibility and incalculably banal diatribe!
What's more, people call this a "war movie", but it has more to do with
the ramblings of a psychologically dysfunctional child (and some random, yet equally bizarre, and indubitably dysfunctional female companion, who somehow accompanies him for God knows what reason) through uninvitingly cool, sub-artic forests, tundra and fields. Along the way they repeatedly find that life is a struggle, and challenging. Meanwhile, the occasional minute or two shows either a uniformed soldier hanging about, or a fighter plane 'droning by' in the sky. But do such minor elements (or should I argue 'embelishments') add up to make it a "war" movie??? When the inevitable and occasional 'handful' of explosions occur - it's almost as if such was added to re-inforce the very idea that this is a 'war movie'; And little else besides. 'War', that is to say, is but one necessary element of this movie's overall, and depressingly bleak, scenery, yet little else besides.
So, this is somehow a "great" movie? Really!?? It's submitted that its being called a "war movie" lacks the same definitional consistency which permeates through every single frame of this entire movie.
Moreover, and by contrast, any of the above truly great movies indeed are most unquestionably war movies - and don't rely upon the accoutrements or 'embellishments' of war to suggest as much, as this movie seems to depend upon - if only so as to caste an even more utterly depressing wallpaper to its bleak, and almost always unforgiving scenery.
But, is it (even) a 'good' movie - in any way, or by even the loosest definition of 'good'? Sorry, but surely this must be one of the world's most overrated arthouse movies. Otherwise, please explain to me, in the most intellectual way if you must, why I'm wrong, and moreover what exact elements of this movie are unsurpassed by other movies? Because that's what an "8.2 rating" should mean - that is to say, greatness almost beyond comparison - insofar as "Schindler's List" is a masterpiece, or even "Casablanca" for that matter! Compared to either of those most masterly movies, "Come to See" is nothing more than the great, and thorougly depressing pretender.PS: I'm left wondering if you people, who've rated this at 8.2/10, are the same people who rated 'Satantango' an even greater 8.6/10? And let's not forget that the first half an hour of the latter movie is mostly comprised of a herd of cows shuffling around a yard. Yet, and it defies belief to say this: 8.6/10 is indeed what my eyes are seeing for that movie right now. Well, if that's 8.6/10, and this isn't far off, then what, I must ask, is this world coming to?
Sandwiched between The Principle of Mediocrity & Rare Earth Theory, you should see The Fermi Paradox
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matthewwave-1 — 11 years ago(December 14, 2014 02:17 PM)
supadude
"Moreover, and by contrast, any of the above truly great movies indeed are most unquestionably war movies - and don't rely upon the accoutrements or 'embellishments' of war to suggest as much, as this movie seems to depend upon - if only so as to caste an even more utterly depressing wallpaper to its bleak, and almost always unforgiving scenery."
This suggests to me that you adhere to ideas of genre (at least in the case of war films) to which I simply don't subscribe myself.
I just don't see how your comparison of Come and See to other movies illustrates that the latter is what you claim it is in your thread-title.
[SPOILER, I GUESS]
It's a very different kind of film than many other war films, including many great ones, and it approaches plot development very differently, but there is a plot, there is a very strong screenplay, one which very much reaches a culmination, one that is both powerful and necessary for Flor's, if not mankind's, salvation. Not many movies climax with a character regaining his humanity in a moment of recognition with Adolf Hitler certainly not after suffers the horrors Flor has suffered at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
Matthew -
OldSamVimes — 11 years ago(February 07, 2015 05:34 AM)
I agree it's one of the best.
Didn't read the OPs long rant, but if you were kidding around OP well done!
If not, then I fear you're vastly overestimating how much other people will care about your opinion on this masterpiece. -
davidf140270 — 10 years ago(October 31, 2015 12:48 AM)
Agreed.Not any other piece of art has affected me as much as this film. It's almost beyond rating as that would be comparing to other films which isn't fair on those films. Only Solaris comes close for me.
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brunoafh123 — 11 years ago(March 17, 2015 12:42 PM)
I have to agree. I didn't think it was that good, let alone the great masterpiece people hail it as. Very boring and full of itself. Most of the "shocking" scenes didn't really have any impact on me because they were rather forcefully and ineffectively built up. When a scene depicting a building full of screaming innocents just comes off as tedious and procedural, something's not right. Nothing in the film really disturbed or moved me in the slightest and just about all of the subject matter is has been done far better elsewhere. It came off as blatant propaganda too many times to be taken seriously as well. Easily one of the most overrated movies I've ever seen.
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C_Jet — 11 years ago(March 29, 2015 06:20 PM)
I really have to wonder if you watched the same film the rest of us did. You thought the barn scene was tedious and procedural??? Really? And what about the Germans hooting and hollering, clearly overcome by sheer bliss while doing so? Then moments later trying to pile onto a truck that is being paraded in circles while a woman is being gang raped??? Been there, done that, is the extent of your condemnation.
I have a feeling you went into this film wanting nothing more than to see the most messed up stuff ever, and were sadly let down. -
aliza_tvito — 11 years ago(March 30, 2015 09:24 PM)
//You thought the barn scene was tedious and procedural??? /// - I guess the OP expected to see the close-ups of the human beings being burned alive, and thus was gravely disappointed. Sure his perception barriers are too high to let him feel the sheer horror of this, and preceding episodes.
Listen to your enemy, for God is talking -
welsh_dragon_roar — 11 years ago(March 20, 2015 01:28 PM)
To be honest, I think it's the 'dirty' feel that it carries along that made the biggest impact on me; that feeling of people almost becoming subhuman during a period where events are completely out of their control, and they lose that certain 'something'.. elements of sanity.. elements of civility.. elements of those little day to day things that make society what it is.
This film gave me a similar feeling as when I watched 'Threads' i.e. just the sheer despair of having to adapt oneself to events outside of one's control, with no nice warm room and happy family at the end. -
Ashley Pomeroy — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 04:00 PM)
Again, you're another one of these people who have been on the IMDb for over a decade - eleven years - and in that time you haven't managed to work out paragraphs, punctuation, coherent argument, grammar, wit, simple basic stuff. Unless you joined whilst at pre-school you're now a grown adult. And this is the best you can do. This is your end state, this is how you ended up. Posting rubbish on the IMDB about grown-up films you don't get.
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In contrast, "Come and See" figuratively stinks of effortless implausibility and incalculably banal diatribe!
" - you've seen those words, haven't you? You've seen them somewhere, and you like them. You want to use them yourself! You don't know what they mean, or how to use them in a sentence, but that's not going to stop you. You're going to ferociously use them in a dynamic balustrade of duplicitous coherencies!??!!!?! In order to masticate the retrograde zeitgeist??!??!?!?!??!!! There are eleven-year-old schoolchildren who can write better than you.
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Otherwise, please explain to me, in the most intellectual way if you must, why I'm wrong, and moreover what exact elements of this movie are unsurpassed by other movies?
" - You're writing about an emotive art work as if it was flat pack furniture or a sports match. What exact elements of this movie are unsurpassed by other movies? The totality of the film is the definitive telling of this story; it is fundamentally, thematically not the same as Schindler's List or The Deer Hunter.
Whatever you do for a living, it doesn't involve authority over other people. If you're not a native English speaker, you need a tonne of practice before you can debate effectively on an English-speaking website. -
GuyOnTheLeft — 10 years ago(November 06, 2015 07:19 PM)
Nice takedown. I thought of responding to the OP, but I don't think I can explain why this film was so powerful to me. You either feel it or you don't, I guess.
My top 250:
http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=SlackerInc&perpage=250 -
alfa — 9 years ago(January 16, 2017 06:25 AM)
Yep. Nice work.
It hits so hard because for almost 4 years, the triangle between Kiev, Hamburg and St Petersburg was the worst place to be alive in the whole of human history. Come and See, it's title taken from the Book of Revelations, depicts this period with a truthfulness unrivalled anywhere in cinema. The closest thing to it are the Do Long Bridge scenes in Apocalypse Now Redux.
It has little in common with films about the Holocaust featuring a Nazi hero and a happy ending.