Content warning: Suicide, Genocide, and Spoilers discussed
In the summer of 2019, HBO released their miniseries, Chernobyl, about the famous nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 to great acclaim. In the wake of the show’s success, series creator Craig Mazin cited many books and shows about the disaster that helped him make the show. But, one film he cited that stuck out to me was Elem Klimov’s Come and See, a famously bleak Soviet WWII movie from 1985 that doesn’t deal with nuclear disasters at all. So why did Mazin cite this as an inspiration? To answer this, one must go beyond the plots of these films and dig into their unrelentingly bleak atmospheres, starting with their opening scenes.
Chernobyl was released in five episodes. The first episode begins exactly two years after the nuclear disaster, featuring the series lead Professor Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) taping his confession about the Chernobyl disaster and the lies that haunt its aftermath. Director Johan Renck and director of photography Jakob Ihre light Legaosov’s old Soviet-era apartment with sickly green and blue lights. Between Legosov’s words vaguely describing the “madness” and “lies” and the lighting, an uncomfortably foreboding mood is created. This is only heightened as Legosov hides the recordings in a cat litter box and takes them to a dark alley. Accompanied by the revelation of a man watching him in his car along with the introduction of Hildur Guonadottir’s score, the tension becomes almost unbearable. But catharsis comes as the score growing ever faster suddenly stops as the camera cuts to Legaosov’s dangling feet. He’s hanged himself. Immediately before the series shows us any of the actual disaster, we see a man kill himself alone in his apartment. By beginning the story this way, not only are they depicting how the real-life Legosov actually died, but they make the viewer ask what was so horrible that he did this — a question that compels the viewer forward.
From the outside, a Soviet-produced war film Come and See would seem like a completely unrelated experience to an American-produced disaster miniseries. However, examining the opening reveals some unique similarities. Taking place in 1943 Belorussia, Come and See opens with an old man yelling off in the distance at two boys who are digging in a desolate field. Director Elem Klimov films the Old Man in an awkward close-up of the back of his head as he’s yelling off into the distance with the boys nowhere to be seen. A cut to a wide shot reveals not only a riding crop in the Old Man’s hands but a change in his words. Mixed in with his outbursts about them being brats, the Old Man alludes to an unseen malevolent force by saying they can’t hide from “them” now. Klimov then cuts to reveal the youngest of the boys as he walks toward the camera looking straight at it, face covered in soot, pretending to be a snarling German soldier. The kid might be playing pretend but his intensity and the way KIimov films make him terrifying. Even a reverse shot of the older kid, Flyora (Aleksey Kravchenko), laughing at him fails to ease the tension. The scene continues with awkward close-ups of the boys as they dig for a gun amidst the scraps of army equipment and hide from unseen vehicles. Unlike Chernobyl, the scene contains no suicide or any violence of any kind, but the result is one of the most uncomfortable openings in film history.
Watching both of these openings, the one thought you have in common is that something horrible is yet to come. The feeling that keeps creeping in is dread. The dictionary defines “dread’ as “to anticipate with great apprehension or fear” and Come and See and Chernobyl use dread like a careful surgical tool. The opening scenes of both present an ominous tone and mood to the audience without depicting either the disaster or the war. The viewer doesn’t need to know much about the Russian front of WWII or the specifics of the nuclear disaster to be terrified of what comes next. Just pieces of its aftermath are enough to not only create this mood but also hook the viewer. Indeed a big part of both pieces is that no matter how dark these feelings are, you only want to see more. No moment ever feels comfortable. Yet, by showing only little bits of awfulness, the audience presented with a pervasive desire. You have to know what it’s building to even if you know that thing must be truly upsetting.
With Chernobyl, information or lack thereof creates dread. The main theme of the show is “what are the cost of lies?” In the first episode, dread is created with the audience’s foreknowledge of the disaster and the recreation of that night where workers and firefighters have no idea what’s really going on. Then for the rest of the series comes the aftermath where Legaosov and his team must deal with not only fixing a radioactive catastrophe but dealing with the lies perpetuated by a government that threatens to make things worse through cover-ups. Every new horrifying piece of information comes first with the horrified reaction of the person learning.
At the end of Episode 2, scientist Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson) discovers that water below the destroyed reactor could lead to a far greater disaster. To prevent this Legosov concludes that three men must be sent down below the reactor to drain the water at the cost of their lives. Legosov never explicitly tells the workers who volunteer about this fate but his vagueness nevertheless implies the worst. Renck then shoots their descent below the reactor like a horror movie. From the three men being dressed in plague doctor-like radiation suits to the flooded tunnels lit only by their flashlights, every detail is designed to make the audience’s hair stand up. The scene climaxes when the men’s dosimeters (radiation detection devices) start going off louder and louder as their flashlights fail one by one. And when the men left with nothing but pitch-black darkness, the deafening sound of the dosimeters, and their panicked breathing, the episode ends.
With Come and See, the incoming invasion of the Nazis and their evil creates dread. The film, based on co-writer Ales Adamovich’s own experiences in WWII, covers Floyra enlisting in the army and just trying to survive the Nazi invasion by any means necessary. As for depicting dread on-screen, Klimov uses more surrealist imagery to convey the horrors of war. By doing this, Klimov is trying to convey the idea that WWII was the closest thing to hell on earth and that the Nazis represented an existential threat. This is supported because for all dread and horror throughout most of the film, Klimov doesn’t even show the Nazis. The opening showcases this perfectly with the kids playing around with the weapons they left behind. For the rest of the film, the Nazis are only depicted through their bombs, gunfire, and the destruction they leave behind. At least until the very end.
At the third of Come and See, Flyora is looking for food in the early morning fog when a farmer finds him and decides to disguise Flyora as a member of his family to try and save him. As the fog clears, the awful feeling of dread that’s been through the whole film comes to a head with Nazis making their first appearance. Kilmov and the director of photography Aleksey Rodionov film the Nazi’s entrance by depicting them as dark specters in the fog. This followed by a long tracking shot of a motorcycle making its way to the village only to reveal in a close-up not only the first real look at one of the Nazis but the revelation that the man in the sidecar is a corpse. The Nazis order all the villagers into a barn and then tell the villagers that they can only live if they leave their children behind. What follows is one of the most horrifying scenes in cinematic history as the camera roves around the Nazis eating, drinking, smoking, laughing, and blasting music as they burn down the barn full of people along with the entire village. Throughout the mayhem, we see such sights as close-ups of an officer rubbing his face against his little lemur-like pet on his shoulder, another one eating lobster in her truck, and finally, soldiers carrying an old woman in her bed to the middle of town to “breed” as they leave wreckage. Between these horrible surreal sights and the weight of all the dread in the film building to this moment, Kilmov has managed to depict the Nazis less as soldiers committing atrocities and more like demons in a painting dancing around the fires of hell.
Chernobyl and Come and See are two works of film about completely different historical eras, helmed by filmmakers with very distinct styles, and don’t even share the same exhibition medium. But both use dread to help bring to life the dark history of the former Soviet Union; and in the process, they become masterpieces. Though appetites may vary for the horrors depicted in Chernobyl and Come and See, it can’t be denied their significance in film history as people will be both drawn and horrified by these best uses of dread for years to come.
