MODERN SOVIET FILMS AT UCLA

“Come and See” (1985) and “Farewell” (1982), which screen in Melnitz Theater this weekend in the UCLA Film Archive’s “Salute to the Soviet Republics,” represent the contemporary Russian cinema at its finest. Elem Klimov directed the first and completed the second after the untimely death of his wife, director Larissa Shepitko.

Both are epic in scale, overwhelming in impact and depict the cruel wrenching of people from their ancient, natural environments. Impassioned and highly sensual, both have been gloriously photographed in lush, muted hues and with the utmost expressiveness. With “Come and See” (screening Saturday at 5 p.m.) Klimov tells the story of a youth caught up in World War II as if it had not been told countless times before in the Soviet cinema. In “Farewell” Shepitko and Klimov elicit disturbing and profound implications from the evacuation of an island village, scheduled to be flooded for a reservoir to generate hydroelectric power.

Florian (Alexei Kravchenko), a sturdy Byelorussian farm boy, is thrilled to be conscripted into the army only to lose out when he’s ordered to exchange his boots with a worn pair belonging to a middle-aged man. But the German invasion of Byelorussia plunges Florian into a grueling odyssey that climaxes in a village marked for destruction by the Nazis; by the end of the film this fresh-faced boy will look middle-aged himself.

Making us feel that we’re right there in this inferno with Florian, Klimov wrests images of terrible beauty amid enormous suffering. The hatred of the Nazis in all their arrogance and sadism couldn’t possibly be more intense, and with good reason: The Germans managed with the utmost savagery to lay waste to 628 Byelorussian villages before they were at last defeated. Yet by placing a small, nuzzling furry pet on the shoulder of a German commander as he gives orders for a mass execution, Klimov reminds us that this Nazi is part of humanity.

It’s not until we spot a TV (on which we see cosmonauts circling the globe and hear them commenting how great the earth looks) can we be sure that “Farewell” is actually set in the present. Until then we’ve been shown a timeless existence almost too idyllic to be true--harvesting wheat, for example, is presented as a joyous experience rather than a hard task. But then this film celebrates nature and the crucial importance of living in harmony with it. It is not sentimental but instead gravely cautionary as its depicts the emotional reactions of an entire village as it is uprooted in the name of progress. The good people of the island of Matiora become a microcosm for all humanity as we become increasingly removed from nature.

“Farewell” centers on one family and in particular its beautiful, elderly matriarch (Stefania Stanyuta), who at first is primarily concerned with the fate of the local graveyard but gradually gathers resistance to the uprooting. Her actions, which are unexpected, give the film a quality of ritual and, beyond that, suspense and surprise; “Farewell” is one of those films that begin with a deceptive leisureliness only to build subtly to a quite original and stunning finish. “Farewell” screens Saturday at 8 p.m. and again on Sunday, following the 7:30 p.m. showing of “Meeting in the Milky Way” (another war film, unavailable for preview); for full schedule: (213) 825-2581.

The Lhasa CLub (1110 N. Hudson St., (213) 461-7284) concludes its “Made in French” series Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8:15 p.m. with a program of seven more highly varied and largely pleasing short films, featuring works with animation, puppetry, dance and jazz in addition to straightforward narratives. Leading off is Euzhan Palcy’s “The Devil’s Workshop,” a sly, tender parable on the dangers of judging by appearances that finds a small boy in Martinique imagining that a solitary man, new to the area, is some kind of witch. (This 1981 sketch is a kind of warm-up for Palcy’s “Sugar Cane Alley.”) Also especially winning is Eric Morvan’s “The Cyclist,” in which circumstances force a young man to compete in the Tour de France on a stationary bike, cheered on, nevertheless, by his neighbors.