Come and See: No Heroes in War
The war genre in movies has and always will be prime media for art that conveys trauma. It is in the name. War movies show death, destruction, recovery. Actors have to exhibit the effects of loss, pain, and more often than not, subservience. A frequently shared narrative characteristic of these films, though, is the persistence of a hero character. This character is almost always the protagonist, and can include other characters as well. The prevalence begs the question: what would a war film look like without a hero, and how would it affect the representation of the events and the trauma conveyed? This question was answered in 1985 by Russian filmmaker Elem Klimov in Come and See. Like the war movie genre, Come and See wears its title bluntly. Through the eyes of a Belorusian teenager, Florya, the audience sees the often overlooked horrors of the second World War in Eastern Europe. Through his journey, however, Florya is never painted as a hero, nor is anyone around him. He is never saved, and he never saves. In this, Elem Klimov effectively demonstrates the inversion of freedom and sacrifice as produced by neoliberalism. Despite Come and See taking place in 1943, Klimov, perhaps involuntarily, critiques this symptom of his economy by showing a world that neither permits self nor governance. Moreover, Florya’s body serves as a host in showing said inversion.
Come and See critiques neoliberalism by showing the inversion of freedom and sacrifice on the body and mind of a teenager in World War II. In combination with a lawless, stateless environment, Klimov argues for a return to moral form in the present.
In the epilogue of her book Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution, Wendy Brown argues that freedom has become sacrifice, and vice versa. For example, citizenship, an easy thing to acquire in the twentieth century, now is used to coax people into service and sacrificing for country over self. Even president John F. Kennedy supported this sentiment in 1961 with his famous quote “...ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”. In response to this phenomena, Wendy Brown writes:
“Patriotism itself may be expressed in many ways, from radical criticism to slavish devotion, engaged activity to passive obedience. In all cases, however, its consummate sign is the willingness to risk life, which is why soldiers in battle remain its enduring icon and why Socrates rendered acceptance of his death sentence as ultimate proof of his loyalty to Athens and compared himself to a soldier when doing so. (Brown, 218)
In the beginning of Come and See, Florya is put in the same position Socrates was. He, a willing member of society, had a responsibility to defend his home once he was of age. However, Florya’s victimization by patriotism can be seen even earlier in the film.
The knowing and understanding the opening scene of Come and See is critical to following Florya’s journey and certain scenes later in the film. The film opens on Florya and his friend digging around in old trenches from the first world war which had since been filled with sand. Florya finds a working rifle, and is as excited as any child would be in his position following a major war. An old man passes by and warns them not to dig in the trenches. He points towards a plane in the sky above them- potentially watching. Florya ignores the man and takes the gun home anyways. When it is finally time for the able bodied men of his village to go to war, he thinks he is packed and ready.
I will return to the film and the ramifications of Florya’s decisions, but before doing so, let us return to Brown’s perspective on modern inscription, of which I thoroughly agree with. As with most things in the neoliberal world, people are now more than ever forced to make decisions under the threat of losing everything. Brown notes that thanks to fears of lifelong debt and unemployment, military service is an attractive option. This attractiveness is only amplified thanks to the privatization of once public goods, and the supposed return on one's sacrifice in the form of job security and the Veteran’s Association (in the United States). Alas you may be thinking to yourself “these are the 1940s!” A fair argument against the association between neoliberal and traditional inscription. Florya joins a militia not because of the threat of unemployment, but under threat of death in the first place. To that, a new shift has emerged that relates these two reasons for inscription: where joining a military was once done to defend oneself due to a lack of governance to protect them, neoliberal values have produced a world in which joining the military is done due to lack of governance protecting their wealth. This ties into the symptom that public goods are privatized under neoliberalism. Is unemployment as close to a death sentence today as an invasion was to Florya? To a twenty year old with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, it may seem that way.
In that sense, neoliberal democratic societies which oppose fascism may mirror the very state of governance it was created to protect against, albeit being much more complicated. In the neoliberal world, state racism and antisemitism has been largely replaced by class warfare and the struggles of the proletariat.
I noticed the same convergences happening to Florya in Come and See. Throughout the film, he, as well as actor Aleksei Kravchenko, is repeatedly pushed down to the point of complete mental collapse. Represented as hate, the same fascism that destroyed his life envelops him in the final sequence: a montage of images of hitler and concentration camps in between shots Florya takes at a framed photo of the fuhrer laying in the mud.
Prior to this occurring, there were two scenes in the film that set Florya down this path. First, is the return of the old man from the opening scene. After warning him of not digging in the trenches, Florya’s village is inevitably bombed by the Germans. Upon returning, Florya finds many of his neighbors dead. One of the few survivors is the old man, unable to move due to burns covering his entire body. Florya blames himself for his village’s destruction and attempts to drown himself in a bog. This is the first major piece of trauma that is inflicted on his body, which adds to his break. The second and third pieces of evidence are different from each other. The scene just prior to Florya’s meltdown is trauma inflicted upon his character. There is another that inflicts trauma upon Aleksei Kravchenko.
Allow me to elaborate. Come and See is famed for inflicting genuine trauma on its actors, not unlike those in Kubrick’s The Shining. One of these examples comes from about midway through the film. Florya is crossing a field at night and is fired upon. He takes shelter behind a cow for about a full minute. Behind the scenes, Elem Klimov used live ammo. Aleksei ends the film covered in wrinkles from the stress, of which many speculate were not makeup.
Next, was the second to last scene of the film. Following Florya witnessing the burning of an entire town’s population, the militia captures a group of six nazi soldiers involved in the horrific murders. The leader of the militia gives the ranking nazi officer a can of gasoline and tells him to dowse his comrades with it or else he will be shot. The nazi does so, but is taken down by the other prisoners. All of them are burned alive as Florya watches on. However, Florya does not flinch, nor does he smile. He accepts their deaths as casualties of war, having grown numb to pain. In her book Unclaimed Experience, Cathy Caruth describes trauma as:
“...an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which the response to the event occurs in the often delayed, uncontrolled repetitive appearance of hallucinations and other intrusive phenomena. The experience of the soldier faced with sudden and massive death around him, for example, who suffers this sight in a numbed state, only to relive it later on in repeated nightmares, is a central and recurring image of trauma in our century.” (Caruth, 11)
My reason for providing this definition is to show the similarities between Florya’s subject position at the end of the film, the soldier’s anecdote, and Aleksei’s body. Using these three examples, we can better inform our understanding of the toll of sacrifice, the convergences in the results of fascistic and neoliberal ideologies; the foremost of which is trauma.
The foremost symptom of trauma present in this definition is the delayed hallucination following the incident Come and See demonstrates this through Florya’s numbed state following the killing of the townspeople, then reawakened when seeing the picture of hitler. Following his psychosis, Florya returns to his numbed state and rejoins the militia. Unlike in other scenes throughout the film, Florya’s face is not focused on. Faces had played an important role since Florya returned to his hometown. Following a traumatic moment, Klimov would focus on a character’s horrified expression, hence, why he subjected Aleksei to hiding under live ammunition.
Returning to my original thesis, it is important to ask how this trauma speaks to a critique of neoliberal culture regarding inscription. A good point of comparison is the neoliberal symptom of Homo Economicus. Wendy Brown argues in Undoing the Demos that Homo Economicus becomes the governing rationality (or assumption) under neoliberalism. In other words, assuming the political subject is rational and motivated, those who do not identify as such are ignored and excluded from society. Brown writes:
“Thus, the figure of homo oeconomicus is not simply illusory or ideological in its disavowal of the persons and practices that make and sustain human life. Rather, when homo oeconomicus becomes the governing truth, when it organizes law, conduct, policy, and everyday arrangements, the burdens upon and the invisibility of those excluded persons and practices are intensified.” (Brown, 106)
While Florya’s journey in Come and See may have resulted in the same sacrifice a soldier may deal with today, Klimov changes the historical narrative to show the economic man in a world without economy. Moreover, it draws into question the role of the non-conformist in war, of which is not applicable to the Byelorussians who lack governance in the first place.
This statement was not written to argue that the nazis were portrayed as rational humans. It is well known that discrimination of any level is mathematically irrational due to the additional benefits of cooperation. Rather, nazis were rational under their understanding of nazi ideology, wheras the Byelorusians had no guiding ideology or governance. This leads us to the primary link between 1943 and 1985 by Klimov; Come and See outright puts the audience in the shows of homo politicus as it is vanquished by homo economicus.
Wendy Brown describes this replacement as central to neoliberalism’s effect on society (Brown, 107). Homo Politicus is described as the antonym of homo economicus. It is the political subject that seeks cooperation for the greater good. While not acting in its own self interest, it knows that their sacrifice is for the greater good. This is represented by Florya, who joins the militia out of duty for his country. The nazis seek the opposite, and serve to divide and conquer. While Germans have been manipulated by the nazi party, they are still working and fighting for their own self interest to keep and promote arian supremacy.
This is seen best in one of the final scenes of the film, of which I mentioned briefly earlier in this essay. The event that causes Florya to enter a psychotic state is the killing of nazi prisoners of war by the Byelorussian militia. Through a nazi translator, they question the role each prisoner had in killing the townspeople. Florya points out the man who gave the order to kill the children. Knowing he is about to die, the nazi confesses:
“Yes, I said that: “Come out and leave the children”. I said that because with the children it starts all over again. Not every race has a right to exist. Inferior races spread the contagion of communism. You have no right to be here. Our mission will be accomplished.” (Klimov, 2:04:26)
This quote by the nazi officer demonstrates two things. First, he is working in his own self interest. This can be determined due to his lack of naming any leader, ideology, or nation he is loyal to. In addition, his inclusion of “it starts all over again” shows that he wants the “mission” to be an end to war. Could he be as sick of fighting as the Byelorussians? While likely, I argue his motivations are strictly self interested due to the meaninglessness of his statement. He did not have to say anything seeing as he was essentially at the gallows already. I believe his statement, combined with the actor’s wide eyes and slight smile, was said solety to antagonize the militia, and anger the non-German SS prisoners who claimed they had no role in the burning.
Elem Klimov makes his ultimate statement with the film by having the Byelorussians kill the nazis. This opposes neoliberalism by allowing Homo Politicus to vanquish Homo Economicus. The killing calls for viewers to work cooperativley, and say no to discrimination, and working in onesown self interests.
Come and See effectively critiques symptoms of neoliberalism by showing the struggle between homo economicus and homo politicus through their personification as opposing sides of the Slavic front of World War II. Using the main character, Florya, as a window into this horrific time period, Klimov contrasts our decision making in war between the two eras. Under neoliberalism, freedom is associated with sacrifice to a slavery-like effect. Things like inscription are performed often under the same threats as those in the past, though the governance which assumes subjects are rational and self interested hinders our choice should we have any at all. Lastly, using Aleksei’s body as a readable text in the film, Klimov shows the consequences of homo-economicus, and through an anti-war film, requests a more achievable return to moral form.
Works Cited
Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalisms Stealth Revolution. Zone Books, 2017.
Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Klimov, Elem, director. Come and See. Kino, 1985.
