--- title: "Come and See: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/come-and-see/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/come-and-see" critics_score: 85 critics_reviews: 13 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Come and See (1985): what the critics said Critics' score 85 from 13 reviews: 12 positive, 0 mixed, 1 negative. Twelve of the thirteen reviews are positive, and many rank it among the war films they most admire. The praise gathers around Aleksei Kravchenko as the boy who joins the partisans, and above all the long close-ups on his face, which several critics single out. The sound design is the other recurring point, especially a bombing raid heard through the boy’s damaged ears as a high whine. Critics also agree on the film’s manner, a mixture of lyrical images and expressionist nightmare that most find disorienting on purpose. The spread is narrow, and both reservations date from the 1987 American release. The New York Times finds the village-burning sequence powerful but the surrounding intrusions heavy-handed, with the boy serving as a vehicle for the director rather than a character. The Los Angeles Times admires the hallucinatory sweep but faults the ending as sentimental and the ageing makeup as too obvious. Later reviews raise neither complaint. ## Slant Magazine — Ed Gonzalez Rating 4/4. 1 July 2006. The review hails the film as horrifyingly relentless yet beatific in its artistry, capturing the psychological toll of war through dissociative sound and image manipulation. It singles out the demand for the viewer to witness and remember the cataclysmic intrusion of war. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/elem-klimovs-come-and-see/) ## Empire — Ian Nathan Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 April 2006. Nathan deems it one of the most powerful and disturbing war movies ever made, an extraordinary piece of filmmaking and a relentless masterpiece. He singles out the physical representation of war through raptured precision cinematography and the unforgettable close-ups of the lead child's face mapping terror and madness. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/come-see-review/) ## Film Comment — Michael Sragow Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2020. The critic hails the film as a disturbing, mesmerizing epic with few rivals in depicting the horrors of war, ranking it alongside other apocalyptic visions. He singles out the lead performance by Aleksei Kravchenko for its emotional transparency and the innovative sound and visual techniques that draw viewers into the protagonist's harrowing experience. [Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/deep-focus-come-and-see/) ## The AV Club — Scott Tobias Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 April 2002. The critic praises the film's searing portrayal of WWII horrors as an expressionist nightmare and coming-of-age tale about confronting evil. It stands out for its poetic, surreal depiction of war from a boy's perspective, blending documentary realism with unforgettable visual poetry. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/come-and-see-1798197252) ## The Independent — Alex Cox Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 30 July 1992. Cox calls Come and See a devastating, genuine anti-war film that stands out for its close-quarters depiction of violence and its effects. He singles out the sound design in a bombing raid sequence, where the protagonist's ruptured eardrums create a high-pitched screaming noise on the soundtrack. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/director-s-cut-the-sound-of-fury-alex-cox-on-an-antiwar-rarity-elem-klimov-s-come-and-see-1536556.html) ## The Telegraph — Boris Starling Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 29 April 2022. The critic calls it one of the greatest movies ever made and the greatest war film, an unflinching descent into the horrors of Nazi occupation in Belarus that feels necessary rather than gratuitous. They single out the lead performance and the way the film ages the young protagonist decades in two hours. [Read the review](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/come-see-greatest-antiwar-movie-ever-made-russian/) ## The Times Rating Exceptional. 29 April 2006. The critic ranks it among the most overlooked war films, praising its hallucinatory horror and the mesmerising central performance of a boy joining the partisans in WWII Belarus. They highlight rapturous images amid the ethnic cleansing and biblical hardships. [Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/come-and-see-xbwhmgk3bqs) ## Time Out — WH Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 10 September 2012. The film enacts the hellish experience of war and its effects on a generation through the story of a young partisan witnessing atrocities in 1943 Soviet Belorussia. Klimov renders it as a disorienting mix of lyrical poeticism and expressionist nightmare. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/come-and-see) ## Los Angeles Times — Kevin Thomas Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 31 January 1987. Klimov sustains an epic odyssey through hallucinatory moods and sweeping expressiveness that largely succeeds in making the familiar subject fresh. The film overreaches in its conclusion with overly obvious makeup and a sentimental, false ending that strains credulity. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-01-31-ca-2435-story.html) ## The New York Times — Walter Goodman Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 6 February 1987. The film renders powerful material in its central village-burning sequence but relies on heavy-handed intrusions that undermine the impact. The young protagonist mainly serves as a vehicle for the director's display of powers rather than a coherent point of identification. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/06/movies/film-come-and-see-from-soviet.html) ## The Playlist — Robert Daniels Rating A. 13 August 2020. The critic calls it a mesmerizing and legendary WWII masterpiece and a towering work in the pantheon of greatest war films. They single out its visceral expression of war’s emotional carnage told from a child’s perspective and its status as an underseen triumph that should be compulsory viewing. [Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/come-see-elem-klimov-war-nightmare-20200813/) ## Eye for Film — Anton Bitel Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 25 May 2006. The critic hails it as one of the finest films ever made on the subject of war, an intimate epic in which the promise of adolescence is perverted by war. They single out the repeated close-ups on the boy’s traumatised face and the extraordinary performance by Kravchenko. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/come-and-see-film-review-by-anton-bitel) ## /Film — Joshua Meyer Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 30 August 2022. The piece presents the film as one of the most intense and harrowing anti-war movies ever made, a visceral nightmare that effectively conveys the horrors of WWII through a young boy's experiences. It singles out the film's unrelenting bleakness and surreal elements as what make it essential, if difficult, viewing. [Read the review](https://www.slashfilm.com/986257/the-daily-stream-come-and-see-is-the-most-harrowing-anti-war-film-ever-made/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/come-and-see.md