I agree with you on trimming it, but it's still a great movie. I agree about the swamp scene.

"Cut the laborious struggle through the swamp in half, if not more".
But then it wouldn't seem as much of a struggle, now would it?
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

"It pushes us closer to the altered state the psychotic humans on screen seem to be in."
Very well said, and I agree that Apocalypse Now is similar in capturing that feeling of dreamy, dazed horror.

I couldn't watch without all those thousand yard stares! Man, the way that kid's face transforms, his cartoonishly huge eyes begging the audience to get up and do something already? His poor soul is dismembered for us in extreme close-up It all reminds me of
Apocalypse Now
; more dreamy horror flick than standard issue war movie trying to take us into the $hit. How naive that all seems after subjecting yourself to this ordeal; there aren't any words to describe how black and putrid
this
$hit is. I like how both movies evoke Armageddon in their titles, that's exactly where this scorched earth is coming from, like: everything burns motherf%&kers, you're species is
certifiable
. And how could you not dig the Hitler statue? What about the ambient soundtrack noise? The little critter on that Nazi guy's shoulder!? All those creepy touches further unmoor you from reality like poor FLorya. I think this weird stuff gets at the unbearable intensity of war better than kinetic explosions and rousing speeches. It pushes us closer to the altered state the psychotic humans on screen seem to be in.
Sorry but for me
Come and See
is like the perfect flipside to the WW2 soap opera circle jerk usually on menu in MSM Hollyweird.
Shellshock: The Movie.

I found a lot of what you would eliminate to be partly the reason the movie is so effective.
Saw this for the first time tonight and wow what a movie. It is literally horrific and the transformation of the boy (physically and mentally) throughout the film accentuates it more.
I understand that this is not for everyone, but it has to be praised for its power of depicting an awful time in history. It is not surprising that the creator was in the war.

WOW DOUBLE WOW!!!
The pompous one has spoken!!! The OP is not worthy of the air he breathes. The only thing is that I looked at the OP's list of films and I saw a lot more than Bond or Batman.
Now at risk of also being judged as "vastly inferior" I will agree with the OP and say there were many scenes that needed a trimming. I totally agree with the OP on the swamp wadding scene and I will add Gasha's dance on the suitcase.
I think this film was amazing on so many levels yet definitely needed additional editing. You have the right to disagree but ask weather OP has or I have the right to comment??? Readers fill in the blank here

You've been on the IMDB for twelve years, and you appear to spend every single day commenting about James Bond and Batman, which is fair enough - but you have to ask yourself, after twelve years of never progressing or changing in any way, are you really the right person to comment on this film?
That's a substantial portion of your life essentially thrown away. You aren't likely to improve in the few years you have left unless you do something about it. Otherwise you'll leave a trail of nothing that no-one will follow.

http://giphy.com/gifs/clapping-clap-standing-ovation-qIXVd1RoKGqlO

LOL!
To be fair, there are other highly rated films that I find a bit of a slog to get through. Greed, for instance. Even
8 1/2
is a film I love, yet I always find myself only wanting to watch it in vignettes of five or ten minutes at a time.
And when I put this in, I thought "hmmmtwo and a half hours, yikes" and for about two minutes at the beginning I thought it might be boring, dry, that I might not make it. Then it really picked up and I was spellbound the rest of the way.
My top 250:
http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=SlackerInc&perpage=250

I guess editing a masterpiece might be easier than developing an attention span.
Good idea.