‘Absolutely horrific’ drama that used real bullets during filming is being called the ‘best war movie of all time’

Updated 16:53 28 Dec 2024 GMTPublished 16:34 28 Dec 2024 GMT

The 1985 anti-war film 'shattered' viewers 'for days'

An anti-war film from 1985 is being praised for being both 'harrowing' but a movie that 'should be compulsory viewing for all political leaders'.

If you have a teenager who's been ungrateful for their Christmas presents this year and you want to remind them just how different a life they could've been leading had they been born around just 100 years earlier, then this film should do the trick.

Based on the 1971 novel Khatyn and a collection of survival testimonies, the mid-80s film was written by Elem Klimov and Ales Adamovish, and was directed by Klimov too.

Come and See is an anti-war film which Klimov had to fight for eight years to get produced because of Soviet authorities' censorship.

Set in World War 2, it centers on a young Belarusian teenager named Flyora and what he sees when the Germans occupied what was known as Byelorussia at the time - now Belarus. He flees into the forest and joins Resistance fighters, but what will he find when he returns back to his village to try and find his family?

Come and See stars Aleksei Kravchenko as Flyora alongside the likes of Olga Mironova and Liubomiras Laucevičius.

And Kravchenko previously spoke out about the filming of the 1985 release, revealing real bullets were fired around actors.

According to IMDB, Kravenchenko confirmed in an interview that live ammunition was used during filming and he heard several whizz past his head, some reportedly as close as 10 centimeters away.

However, the extreme scenes were reportedly coordinated with members of the Russian military to safeguard those involved.

It's not taken long for viewers to flock to social media to weigh in on the 'harrowing' movie.

The film has obtained an impressive Rotten Tomatoes' tomatometer score of 89 percent and average popcornmeter score of 96 percent.

One Twitter user wrote: "This is an absolutely gut wrenching brilliant film."

"This is an absolutely gut wrenching brilliant film," another added, as a third commented: "This movie shattered me for days."

"An amazing and harrowing film," a fourth wrote.

A fifth said: "The strongest sequence in all cinema," while a final resolved: "What a film. Should be compulsory viewing for all political leaders."

And Far Out even branded it 'one of the best WWII films ever made'.