15 December 2008

Come and See

I wrote the following in comment to a review on Amazon.co.uk regarding the Russian movie by Elem Klimov called Idi i smotri (Come and See). I have posted the comment here because I wish to develop a few ideas from it.

"Whilst what you have written may well be true, fair and balanced, Klimov's movie is intended only as true - it is you who place on it the burden of being fair and balanced. Whilst some art clearly does attempt to achieve balance, I am not sure that a painting such as 'Guernica' would be improved were it to attempt a panoptic perspective. Maybe a BBC documentary about the Second World War in Byelorussia would feel more satisfactory as accurate reporting and fair analysis."