A cruel masterpiece: the most terrible Soviet film about the war caused delight in the West

Elem Klimov's painting "Go and See" (1985) became available to users of the Amazon Prime streaming service, which operates in more than 200 countries around the world. Viewers "just can't get enough of them," according to the British portal Daily Express.

The publication notes that this is an "epic tragedy" about the events of a terrible war, witnessed by the main character of the film Fleur (Alexei Kravchenko), however, the publication calls him a girl.

"Since its release, the film has received rave reviews, Walter Goodman of the New York Times noted: "The story is terrifying, and the presentation of the material is visual… Powerful material, powerfully presented ...", the publication reminds.

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post wrote that "directing with angry eloquence, Klimov plunges into that hallucinatory otherworld of blood, dirt and growing madness that Francis Ford Coppola discovered in Apocalypse Now.

"Despite the fact that the film was released more than forty years ago, it still receives a lot of rave reviews on the Internet," the publication emphasizes.

The popular review site Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie an impressive rating of 90%.

"I have goosebumps. Watching this movie was too cruel and crazy for me", "Elem Klimov's brutal masterpiece is definitely devastating, disturbing, terrifying and for me personally one of my favorite war films of all time. It's almost like watching a horror movie," "It's not an easy movie, but it doesn't have to be like that. A brutally important film showing the darkest, nastiest side of humanity. Words cannot describe it," the audience shares their impressions of the viewing.

The script "Go and see" was written by Elem Klimov together with the author of the "Khatyn story" Ales Adamovich. The film tells about the events of 1943 in Nazi-occupied Belarus. The main character of Fleur is a teenager who finds a rifle and goes to a partisan detachment. He witnesses a monstrous punitive operation in which his entire family dies. He himself goes through incredible trials, turning from a child into a gray-haired old man in a few days.