The Myth's Way Back into the Body. A Visual Analysis of the Anti-War Film

Abstract

In this article, I will analyse from a psychological and philosophical point of view many sequences from the film Come and See by Elem Klimov. I will extract from each of them the parts that define their essence and construct a biunivocal correspondence between their cinematic representation and myths and archetypes (the myth of return, the myth of birth, the myth of the totem, the myth of the rescuer, the trauma of abandonment). Next, my analysis will focus on understanding the protagonist's unconscious confrontation with the collective trauma of war. I will present the connection between the methods that director Klimov used and the emotional intensity that the film's characters experienced and their refractory capacity towards the viewer. Coupled with an aesthetic analysis, I will offer a possible algorithm for deconstructing history and reconstructing different identities. An important part will be devoted to psychological observations on the main character and the unusual way in which the process of his maturation takes place. At the same time, I will delineate the vague areas in which personal history becomes the great history and the individual becomes only an instrument of its unfolding.