what can happen
I wouldn't recommend this film to overly sensitive people. It is a grimly realistic portrayal of what can happen, and history tells us has happened, when people are given license and encouragement to indulge their most cruel, brutish impulses. The director has,to my mind, succeeded brilliantly in showing the murderous orgy which resulted when the constraints of culture and civilization were removed. Rather than entertainment, watching this film is an experience, reminiscent of the nightmare visions of Bosch and Brueghel. As a counterpoint to the barbarity we are shown the determination of the invaded people not to be trodden underfoot. Come and See is surely a tribute to the strength of the human will to survive even under these monstrous circumstances.

save your money!
Ah, another DVD I purchased based on the reviews. This movie is absolute rubbish! The first 60 minutes are extremely boring and a clumsy attempt to draw the viewer into a weak Russian style melodrama.
If you made the mistake and paid for this movie, view the last twenty minutes of it. See the bad Germans do their thing and the heroic Russian partisans be heroes at the end. What a disappointment!

This is just plain weird, maybe good if you're on drugs or something...
First off, I'm a military history fanatic, not a film critic, but I love historically accurate and well-done war movies and have hundreds in my collection. I'd seen clips of "Come and See" on Youtube and it looked okay with some interesting scenes. I expected it to be a Soviet propaganda film, which it is, but I had NO IDEA how screwed up this movie would be. THIS THING IS AWFUL! Unless you like French perfume commercials, and understand them, stay away from this movie, it will cause brain damage.

Literally, the first hour and twenty minutes is nothing but the boy and a weird girl running around doing not much of anything in the woods, shouting stuff that doesn't make any sense, dancing goofy dances on boxes, and looking at an airplane that doesn't do anything. Then, in the last ten minutes, you get the big scene where the Germans kill everybody for no apparent reason and the entire scene there doesn't make any sense either. Then, it ends in an absolutely bizarre and avant-garde fashion that makes even less sense than the rest of the flick. This isn't brilliant film making, this is pure garbage.

Not only is it historical garbage, it's not entertaining, it's not disturbing, it's just plain weird and most of all, it's extremely boring. You keep waiting for something to happen, anything, and you get nothing for a long, long, time. A REALLY STUPID MOVIE! Watch the clips on youtube, that's all that's worth watching and save your money.

Shockingly Bad!!!
I cannot believe the people who have said this is some sort of masterpiece! Nothing is further from the truth! I hope I save at least 1 person from wasting their time like I did when I saw this film. It is cartoonish in it's depiction of the Germans. It has that artsy foreign look throughout, clumsy and juvenile, while pretending to be a statement on the brutality of war. Do yourself a favor and avoid this film at all costs. It's not only bad, but it's shockingly bad!! Last but not least.....Sean Penn said he was deeply moved .......of course he was, it's communist dribble! Leave and don't see!

But seriously, tovariches..!
Brutal, tedious and unintelligible.

Yes, most wars tend to be that way, but that doesn't mean war movies ought to be so. This one is so tepid and outlandish, it borders into self parody. To avoid that, the director then tortures and slaughters animals -for real! Oh, and last but not least, many among the nazis wear Polish uniforms; an ill attempt -my guess- to justify the (in)famous Katyn atrocities committed by the Red Army.

Made in the last years of Soviet cinema, after glasnost it should have been retitled "Stalin meets Pole pot".