"Know Thyself" and "Nothing in Excess" — phrases carved in stone at the ancient cradle of European civilization. This documentary leverages the more recent and ongoing European identity crisis in a literal effort to find locate the Golden Mean, what we might call here "Middle America," in the geographical center of Europe. What makes this quest worth making is the fact that there are so many claimants to the geographical center, and apparently more popping up all the time. The gameplan here involves traveling to each of these aspirants — a circle of centers, in Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania — where we find monuments, markers, cafes, and local authorities confidently marking the spot. Along the way, we sample various local cultures represented by each of these centers and reflect a little on the diversity and prospects for unity in a Europe whose borders have always been fluid, and never moreso than at the present. Stops include a countercultural gathering of tribes in a forest in Western Germany, the Austrian berg Braunau (where the main snag to promoting local tourism is being the birthplace of Adolf Hitler!); two towns basing claims of centrality on Divine authority: one in Slovokia (an angel) and Poland (the Pope); and various other claimants, new and old. In one place, the film crew actually records the building of new center marker, in another, hundreds of kilometers away, they find a hole in the ground from which the marker has been stolen. Bopping between colorful locales, the film feels like a Sunday afternoon drive in the countryside; unfortunately, the roadtrip breaks down a bit in — you guessed it, the middle. The filmmakers tend to get bogged down in scenes that might have played better shorter, and might have contributed more if they'd found a way to deeper sorts of center-searching. For example, the film suggests at one point possible metaphorical centers of the Europe in television and the cross, with the former sequence going on too long and the latter to quick and superficial. Class, economic, and ideological divisions are touched on, but only on the surface; by the end, one feels we've been skirting something deep and profound but never as far into the center as we might have. It was a great idea, and much of the film is great fun, but I'm not sure the filmmakers either realized fully what they were on to or were up to the task of following the clues beyond playing along the edges.

By late 1980s, glasnost had unleashed a flood of films exposing horrors long-hidden in the Soviet history and psyche. After more than half-century under a strictly-controlled Official Reality, a truth-starved people gave in to what became a feeding frenzy in a suddenly-free market. Demand for exposure soon produced its own genre, cherukha (Russian slang for "darkness") films. Technically, Come and See might not be classed as a cherukha film, since the Soviets never had any reticence about exposing Nazi atrocities. Yet this film is far from yet another romantic triumph of the People over the Fascists, and was relased amid the first pent-up burst of truth-telling about Soviet crimes. The year before, in 1984, the anti-Stalinist allegory Repentance was made (though not released immediately), launching a decade-long unbelievably painful national self-examination. Like Apocalypse Now, Come and See journeys into the heart of human darkness, in a surreal and soul-wrenching combination of art and horror that threatens to call into question the entire human endeavor — yet not entirely bereft of hope.

In 1943, the invading German army was cutting a barbarian swath across the Western USSR, especially in Byelorussia, a region particularly subjected to staggering brutality by the Nazis, who left a path of slaughter and pillage in their wake. Teenage Floyra is determined to join the Soviet insurgents fighting off the invader. After a painful parting with his mother and sisters, Floyra gets stuck with the job of holding the fort while the rest of the partisans move on, leaving him behind to witness things that steal both his innocence and reason. This story is a coming-of-age that becomes a descent into madness. "Are you crazy?" is the opening line of the film, and not the last time the question is asked. As with recent Balkan movies, this film reveals a deeply-wounded national psyche, post-traumatic stress as experienced by entire populations.

American cinema has probed its own war-woundedness, but never like this, and chiefly because America has never experienced war like this. Come and See delivers unforgettable image after image, from the surreal to the lyrical, and is paced so that the effect of both extremes are maximized: an interlude of joy in a rainy forest, wading neck-deep through a muddy swamp in search of refugees, a mad exodus through razed and burning villages. The directorial choices are more than just framing up compellling shots, however: the strategy seems to be aimed at getting us inside Floyra's experience as much as possible. The film is filled with disturbing and distorted images, including frequent use of closeups in which the subject looks into the camera lens. Another key to the astonishing power of this film is one of the most brilliant sound effects/music mixes you'll ever hear: bone-jarring synthesized tones just at the edge of audibility, layered over Psycho-like screetches, distorted crowd sounds, snatches of classical music, and strategic silences. The net result: we feel with Florya, the fraternal thrill of the partisan camp, the horror of his experience press into our minds, like his, like hammer in the skull.

The effect is devastating, yet transcends atrocity-porn, the falsity of sanctimonious Hollywood war blockbusters, or even well-meaning anti-war message-making; if the human experience includes this possibility, it seems important that being human requires confronting this and, hopefully, coming out the other side without losing mind or hope. The final sequence is breathtakingly cathartic, and the hope comes in raising the question of whether terrible deeds can ever be effaced without resorting to perpetuating or even escalating the cycle of violence.

Last year was hailed the "Year of the Documentary" after a bumper crop of "non-fiction films" — though some will resist the use of that label for all documentaries. Indeed, "non-fiction" films connected with controversial topics may in the end serve only to have devalued substantially the notion of "non-fiction". One happy result of such devaluation might be increased public skepticism toward other alleged "non-fiction": television news, corporate-funded "studies," government press releases, etc. Ordinary consumers of media may finally be coming to understand, after all, that "Nothing is unmediated." But even with this in mind, most viewers of this DV documentary from Israel will agree that it presents about as unmediated a look at its controversial subject as one might get. (Even the titles are stripped down, looking like they were created on an Apple II!)

The subject here is those Israeli security checkpoints along the Palestinian border, a border which these days seems to mark the virtual center of the universe, a painful everyday reality for everyone involved — especially Palestinians who find themselves on either side of the line. There are, no doubt, plenty of stories of both violent collisions and life-affirming cross-cultural engagements at these checkpoints. However, this film eschews the sensational extremes, and focuses on the everyday nuisance and frustration these borders mark for all involved. For the soldiers: it's a dirty job that somebody has to do, with those damnable combinations of boredom and danger, bureaucratic numbness and absolute power. For the Palestinians: it's a daily inconvenience and humiliation, provoking an equally damnable combination of bitter resignation and hidden rage.

We get a sense of the endless ordinariness of it all because the basic scenario is repeated with predictable variations. Stop your vehicle. Exit your vehicle. Empty your luggage by the side of the road. Along with personal effects, border crossings involve exposing personal history, plans, detailed answers to endless questions at the discretion of bored and cocky teenage guards. Thus we meet ordinary people trying to get on with their ordinary lives. Going home. Going to work. Going to a funeral. Visiting a sick father. Doing last-minute errands before a wedding (though it's tough to see how anything can be "last minute" with such potential delays and complications must necessarily be factored into any plans). Taking a sick child to a doctor. In fact, even Palestinian ambulances are stopped and emptied: a doctor is shown patiently explaining to the young border guard which patient has what disease and is going to which hospital. Often it's not enough simply to explain what you're doing, you have to convince the young man with the Uzi that you're telling the truth, that your need is important enough for him to let you past. And one is always painfully cognizant of being at the mercy of so many unpredictable circumstances: the guard's mood that day, ever-changing policies, arbitrary restrictions. A road that was open this morning is now suddenly closed. A guard who told you one thing is now telling you another. The bus that drives children through here to school each morning suddenly doesn't have the right permit. And, as with bad parenting, everything given as absolute is quite often actually negotiable, and everybody knows it. There's always a possibility that if you press hard enough, the guard will let you by: these are ingredients to make an already-volatile situation even more dangerous. Tempers flare, babies cry, mothers wail, guards get nasty.

The viewer will be surprised at the access these filmmakers were accorded. Clearly, they must have been "embedded" in some way or another, working with the cooperation of the Israeli military — who have been known to be skittish about unfavorable press in battle zones. Perhaps the reason elements unflattering to the Israelis passed any official filters is because the situations recorded are as ordinary as the day is long, just another day on the border. Soldiers are, after all, only human: they're shown relaxing off duty, flirting with pretty girls, working under difficult conditions. But even nice guys in repetitive jobs grow numb and irritable, begin to treat the customers as faceless masses. Along with any nice guys, there are a few stereotypically swaggering jerks, who refer to the Palestinians as "animals." (Which, not to put too fine a point on it, takes us from bureaucratic numbness into the direction of Nazi sentiment.)

Some soldiers, in fact, have refused to do this dirty job — and we are shown one guard reading (with some disgust) a statement to that effect by the so-called Refusniks, Israeli military personal who are conscientiously-objecting to participating in ill-treatment of the Palestinians people.

And despite the racist attitude of some, the Palestinians are people, too. We see them chafe at the restrictions, get upset and angry, standing in the rain and snow for hours waiting to get home or all the other places they're needed or need to be — but more often they stand with a seemingly infinite, if bone-weary, patience. Not really infinite patience, of course: we see it in the eyes of older men who have mastered the terrible art of not causing offense while defiantly holding on to dignity, and recording everything for bitter memory. We see it in the eyes of children, not yet so practiced in such subtleties, watching as their parents and grandparents are harrassed, humiliated and harrangued, accused of lying, treated as children, as idiots, and yes, as animals. The images those little eyes are taking in will haunt the coming generations like the memory of meek Jews obediently entering gas chambers fueled countless vows of "Never again."

You can be certain that some will complain that the relatively unmediated presentation of this incredible little DV film leaves out some important context, namely the terrible violence against the Israeli citizens that has provoked such oppressive caution. On the other hand, this film goes a long way to providing context for understanding why little Palestinian children grow up to kill Israelis. Meanwhile, there's no question that next time I hear that the US army in Iraq has "increased the number of checkpoints" that I'll have a better sense of what that might mean.