Whenever I engage with a war film, I find myself thinking of the quote from French New Wave director François Truffaut: “I don’t think I’ve seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro war.” War is a common subject in film — the grand scale, the epic drama, the interminable violence. It’s hard not to turn these events into propagandized, glorified tales of bravery instead of what they truly are: ghastly horrors. However, 1985’s Come and See is a different beast entirely. This is the one film I’d use as an antithesis to Truffaut’s argument. Director Elem Klimov pulls no punches when it comes to war, placing us in the headspace of a young boy, hungry to fight on the front lines of World War II for the Soviets. What transpires might be one of the most harrowing losses of innocence ever put to film. If you can stomach only so much of Bleak Week at the Belcourt, and can choose only one movie to see, make it this one. It’s intense, but it’s one of the truest antiwar films ever made.
4:40 p.m. at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
