When I saw the lamb unveil the first seal of the seven seals, I heard one of the four living creatures with a thunderous voice, saying: Come and take a look!
I watched and saw a white horse; the one riding on the horse, holding a bow, and giving him a crown. He came out, winning again and again.
When the second seal was unveiled, I heard the second living creature say: Come and take a look.
Then another horse came out, red, and gave the rider authority to take peace from the ground so that people could kill each other; and a big sword was given to him.
When the third seal was unveiled, I heard the third living creature say: Come and take a look! I watched and saw a dark horse; the one riding on the horse had a balance in his hand.
I heard that there seemed to be a voice among the four living creatures saying: One penny for one liter of wheat, one penny for three liters of barley; oil and wine must not be spoiled.
When the fourth seal was unveiled, I heard the fourth living creature say: Come and take a look!
I watched and saw a gray horse; the one riding on the horse was named Death, and the Hades followed him; authority was given to them, and they could kill a quarter of the people on the ground with swords, famine, plague, and wild beasts. people.
When the fifth seal was opened, I saw that under the altar there was the way of God and the souls of the slain people who were witnessing, shouting: "Holy and true Lord, you do not judge those who live on earth." , How long will we have to wait for the bloodshed?
So white robes were given to each of them; and they were told to rest for a while, waiting for their servants and their brothers to be killed as they did, and they were satisfied.
When the sixth seal was unveiled, I saw the earth tremble again, the sun turned black like woolen cloth, the full moon turned red like blood, and the stars in the sky fell to the ground, like a fig tree being shaken by a strong wind and dropping unripe fruit.
The sky moved, as if a book was rolled up; mountains, mountains and islands were moved away from their place.
The kings, officials, generals, wealthy families, strong men, and all the slaves and independents on the earth are hiding in caves and rock caves. They say to the mountains and rocks: Fall on us! Hide us from the face of the throne and the wrath of the Lamb;
Because the day of their anger has arrived, who can stand?
The above is taken from the "Bible: Revelation 6:1-17", which describes the four horsemen of the apocalypse descending on the world after the seven seals are unlocked, bringing the scene of apocalyptic catastrophe. Among them, the white horse knights, which we often call "the plague", are the sons of the devil and antichrist; the red horse knights are named "war", making swords and destruction; the dark horse knights "famine", which brings down hunger and also brings innocence. A fair deal breaks the balance of the world; the gray horse knight "dies" and gives mankind the final judgment.
This section of "Apocalypse" not only shows the catastrophe that the Four Horsemen brought to the mortal world, but also uses the phrase "Come And See" to connect to a narrator's perspective: me.
So, "Come and see" became the name of the 1985 Soviet war movie (the Chinese film on the Internet is called "Go and Watch by Myself"). The protagonist, Friola, is the "I" in "Revelation". To quote the sage's classics, "Come and See" starts from the individual's point of view and uses a kind of image information similar to spiritual consciousness to reproduce the large-scale bloody massacre caused by the Germans in Belarus during World War II.
The film has long been described as "the cruelest war movie in history". In fact, there are not too many bloody scenes in the film, at least not deliberately creating a physical discomfort from the senses. However, behind the more "moderate" visual appearance, what was revealed was the sorrow and fear that permeated the depths of memory during the war. Through the experience of Friola, the film imprints this lingering shadow in the hearts of every viewer.
The scene of hell in "Come and See" is not the intuitive visual stimulus commonly seen in war films such as a large amount of blood, corpses, and residual limbs, but through countless faces looking directly at the camera, the solemn and unique image language, which is trembling. Sound processing and rendering in combination with various signs, images and symbols in the environment.
The film does not focus on any frontal battlefield, nor does it show the tragedy of soldiers or civilians in a panoramic manner. It uses a creative attitude and stand that is completely different from traditional war films, especially Soviet war epics. No matter in terms of text or video, the style and form embodied by it still seem to have a sharp advancement.
The film was born in 1985, when the Soviet war film transitioned from heroic hymns and collectivism to rational thinking. At the same time, it also opened the end of the history of Soviet cinema. At that time Gorbachev promoted reforms under the slogans of "accelerating strategy", "openness" and "democratization", which involved all levels of Soviet society, politics, economy and culture.
At that time, the Soviet people's interest in movies continued to decline, which was probably caused by the lack of diversity in the works, because too many similar ideas and themes flooded the market. Of course, it is also affected by the domestic economic situation and political atmosphere. In short, in the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union ushered in a period of tumult and restlessness, and Soviet cinema also entered a relatively low stage. Therefore, the Soviet film industry naturally responded to the call for "reform", trying to restore "aesthetic justice", emancipating the mind, and revitalizing local films.
For film, Gorbachev's works during the reform period no longer emphasize cultural ideology and relax many restrictions in creative thinking. As a result, more different realistic themes appeared, as well as corresponding diverse values and historical concepts. At the same time, the authorities also lifted the ban on a number of Soviet films that had been banned for 20 years on the grounds of re-censorship, including works with distinctive experimental colors, unique artistic ideas, and innovative expression techniques. In contrast, nine films including "Lenin in October" and "Lenin in 1918" were banned on the grounds that the plot was "seriously inaccurate."
For political purposes visible to the naked eye, Gorbachev also encouraged the production of films that criticized "Stalinism" and satirized Brezhnev's wrong policies when he was in power. As a result, batch after batch of movies that may have caused a murder turn out. Regarding the treatment of imported films, the Gorbachev regime also relaxed its policies and abolished the quota. Finally, in the film management system, the film committee's review of scripts has also been cancelled, and the state has transitioned from administrative management to economic management of films.
The glory of heroism, collectivism, and idealism in Soviet (war) movies has gradually faded, and the road of socialist realism is nearing the end. The freedom of creation has brought a wider range of works to come out, and at the same time it has further led to the collapse of the Soviet Union as a social ideology. Finally, in December 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The Soviet film, which is heavily colored in film history, has completely become a historical term.
It's not that the changes in Soviet films indirectly led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It was Gorbachev's reforms that deeply affected the appearance of Soviet films in the 1980s and also affected the country's historical process. In any case, we can see the big changes in our attitude towards culture and entertainment since that period, and use them as a footnote to a period of social and political history. "Come and See" was created in such a big environment, and it does seem particularly novel.
First of all, the film is definitely completely different from heroic war films such as "Conquer Berlin", "Xia Boyang", and "Maxine" trilogy. The text is very different, and the image style is two ends. Compared with the previous humanitarian war films such as "The Dawn Here is Quiet" and "They Fight for the Motherland", which focus on "small events" and "little people", these films follow the traditional narrative framework and have a collective identity. The idealistic color. Even for films like "Goose Flying to the South", "A Man’s Encounter", "Song of a Soldier", and "Ivan’s Childhood" that use a purer individual perspective and partly describe warfare, "Come and See" Quite maverick. Of course, such an alternative work cannot be compared with a grand epic like "Liberation".
It is also different from the completely poetic image of Andrei Tarkovsky. Indeed, in the process of watching the movie, some pictures inevitably remind people of the old tower and Sokolov, but the combination of sound effects, mirror editing and color, and even the plot itself is still not completely counterpoint. What's more, the form of the old tower has long surpassed the scope of native Soviet films and has become a worldwide indicator. To me, the content, form and style of "Come and See" are roughly between the traditional Soviet "socialist realism" movies and Tarkovsky, and it is a very independent existence.
In terms of performance techniques, director Elem Klimov obviously followed the ideas of the current art of the Soviet Union to arrange. However, when the composition of the painting turns into the scene in front of the camera, it shows a different entanglement. In the drama, there is a tendency to deliberately de-plot, burying many events outside the focal length of the lens, focusing on the state of the characters themselves. Experimental techniques such as the texture of oil painting, handheld photography, and looking directly at the lens undoubtedly put this film ahead of the times. As the history of film or cultural politics, this film is an excellent research material.
Klimov used the "Bible Revelation" as a reference and constructed a broader and more complex picture of World War II. Following the action trajectory of the protagonist and some surreal ideographic elements, the film flows with philosophical thinking about war, concretely showing the process of alienation of people in such an extreme environment. There are many satanic image metaphors in the film, and Klimov also inherited the mysticism and doomsday imagery in "Monk" and "Farewell".
The film didn't take the path of macro narrative at all, nor did it directly describe the battle paragraphs. The only place that can border the landscape of traditional war films is the scene where the guerrillas took a group photo in the forest before their expedition. This passage exaggerates the inspiring power. The panoramic view of the guerrillas, accompanied by the melody of Aleksandrov's "Holy War", is majestic and mighty, with high morale, which is a typical Soviet socialist creative style. The composition is also very particular.
In addition, there was a bombing of the forest—Friola and Grasha stayed in the forest and wandered around. At this time a group of German soldiers fell from the sky, followed by a carpet bombing of the forest. The film arranged several aerial shots, followed by shots of German infantry walking by. The guerrillas have been transferred, and Friola and Graça have also escaped the siege.
The sound effects of this film have a shocking effect, not only in the processing of the narrative sound, but also in the voice of the characters' lines that show a strong sense of form. The most obvious is the scene at the beginning of the film, where Friola and her friends dig weapons on the beach. When the old man looking for the two of them drove away in a carriage, Friola's little friend came out, chanting lines in an extremely gloomy, hoarse voice that did not fit his age at all, and his expression was extremely hideous. Maybe he was speaking like an adult, which is why Friola would hide behind a tree and laugh when he saw him like this. But at that moment, we almost thought the child was possessed by the devil, talking about words that only appeared in war.
In addition to the original sound processing, its composition is also very delicate. A major feature of this war movie is that multiple characters are constantly looking directly at the camera. The close-up of the face has a sense of interrogation, and it also constitutes a vivid historical image. The splicing of each face is a representative display of the respective groups in historical images. In addition to bringing viewers a gaze and interrogation across time and space, faces with different expressions themselves have become part of the text, carrying the despair, sorrow and coldness of people during wartime, and have become a close link of the ideographic structure.
The open facial close-ups still seem to be influenced by the portrait paintings of the Soviet society, but they are undoubtedly a colder variant. First of all, of course, these portraits are not the faces of great men, nor do they have a hint of heroism-they do not serve politics at all. Secondly, the freeze-frame portraits captured by these cameras are either German military officers with no humanity, or civilians covered with tears and mud. They are true portrayals of war behemoths, and they are endowed with unforgettable beauty by the images. The colors and proportions of these pictures remind me of the few portraits such as Repin, Maksimov, and Golb. It's just that in painting, there is always some unspeakable truth behind the beauty, and the pictures in "Come and See" use their own compositional beauty to put the cruel reality of history before our eyes.
However, when facing these passages, the audience feels good atmosphere and mood, which often contrasts with the characters in the film. For example, the scary-sounding voice of the child at the beginning was a brisk ridicule or naive imitation in the eyes of Friola and the old man. In other parts of the film, we can see some nervous or cruel scenes, but when the camera turns to close-ups of other people, it seems to be deliberately stripping away the situation that should have been established.
The face becomes a separate artistic structure in this film. And constantly looking at the camera, so that the camera no longer hides behind the scene or drifts away from the scene. The camera intervenes into the picture in a changing posture. Although it does not affect the narrative and does not "break the fourth wall" in the strict sense, it has clearly become a kind of surreal existence. It is no longer a complete reproduction of the image facts from the perspective of God, but a constant degradation, allowing the characters in the play to perceive their own "second person" attributes.
In this way, the camera not only acts as a bridge between the audience and the image, but also produces one-to-one emotional grafting, so that the audience cannot watch as a pure spectator. At the same time, it also connects to another hidden perspective of "Bible Revelation", that is, the writer. Through the change of the position of the camera, the whole film is constantly inverted and changed in the text of religion and history. It can be said that this is exactly the result of the transition of the contents recorded in "Revelation" to the reappearance of images.
In addition to giving the neat close-up shots and composition a certain mystic artistic characteristic, other irregular compositions interpret Klimov’s creative intentions: alienating religious poetry into a dark landscape, making this world The war that broke out really showed the duality of heaven and hell. For example, after the guerrillas captured the German army and executed them, a composition of a shot showing Friola layered the picture. Friola at the bottom could barely see the head, and above his head was the guerrillas tidying up the battlefield. At this time, for the protagonist, his life has already fallen into hell, and his human nature is also scarred, so his body is buried under the horizon. The environment and light on the ground also hinted at the permanent shadows brought about by the war. At this time, the whistle went from far to near, and Friola turned to see the dilapidated Graça.
This is undoubtedly a not-so-common composition technique. It has a deep impression and a strong sense of form, but it expresses the mood of the character very well. And while continuing the overall tone of the film, there is a higher level of psychological progress.
It is the combination of religious metaphor and realism that makes "Come and See" appear to be quite avant-garde, not sticking to the rigid framework of traditional Soviet social creation. Not only does the camera itself become a surreal existence in the film, the design of certain passages is also completely out of the traditional realistic themes, especially the creative ideas of realistic war movies, thus showing a different kind of artistic experience.
The close-up of the dying cow's constantly turning eyes is the last struggle of the creatures in the world of purgatory. The unclean cranes in the forest hint at people's imaginary illusions during the war. The scorched old man lay horizontally on the grass, like Jesus who was suffering in another way. Hitler's dummy looks mysterious and terrifying, and is simply the incarnation of death. Friola and Graça are drowned in the swamp, which reflects a self-evident history.
The most frightening thing is Friola's face that ages at an extraordinary speed. "Come and see" generally follows the structure of the journey story, from Friola and her friends digging weapons, joining the army, to being recruited by the guerrillas, to being arranged by the guerrillas to stay behind, and Grasha escaped the German sweep. When I returned to my hometown, I refused to admit the fact that the whole village was slaughtered. Then when they met the surviving villagers, several people searched for food together. Finally, they encountered a large number of German troops and survived a tragic massacre. At the end, they reunited with the guerrillas and executed the German army that had just slaughtered the villagers. After only a few days of life and death, Friola changed his face from a young man to a wrinkled old man. The war's distortion of time and the alienation of people are revealed in this process.
The magical pen at the end has become the film's subversion of the entire historical text, and even a criticism of the world. The film uses film technology to connect the close-up of Friola's face with the puddle in the background, but it is in a clearly separated space. Then, Friola walked to the puddle and shot at the portrait of Hitler in the puddle. At this time, the color image became a black-and-white documentary, and Hitler was receiving soldiers. Bullets penetrated from reality into real history, constantly hitting the head of the German Third Reich. With every shot of Friola, Hitler's life would go backwards until it degenerated into a swaddled baby. At this time, Friola no longer had the heart to shoot. The camera turns to the burning house, and history has not been rewritten.
This surreal plot seems to leave a tail of kindness and hope to the whole story. However, in front of the old Friola, and in the hell-like environment, the huge haze caused by the previous series of events could not be dispelled at all. Such hope is only a pale and feeble self-consolation. Therefore, in the final scene of the film, we are forced to stare at Friola, who is old and ugly. The picture gradually fades and finally turns into a death hue.
I don't really like the "aesthetic legitimacy", but under the current situation of lazy aesthetics. This war movie 30 years ago allowed me to find a rare aesthetic novelty in the current movie. "Come and See" is undoubtedly a masterpiece of war that cannot be ignored in film history. Its original lens language, sharp avant-garde, and expressions between realism and poetic aesthetics are all worthy of our recollection and remember. The literary and artistic works of the Soviet Union are known for their strong socialist realism, and have different tastes from Europe, America and the East, whether it is painting, music, literature or film. Therefore, although Soviet cinema is a thing of the past, there are still many remains to be discovered. In these few works of interest, it is likely that there are many possibilities for future images.
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