directed by Sam Mendes
written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Unlike the Second World War, which has been the subject of many, many films since it wrought its havoc on four different continents three quarters of a century ago, the First World War, while it's also been the subject of films (including Academy Award winner for Best Picture All Quiet on the Western Front) it's never been depicted in a film quite like "1917," though, for that matter, neither has any other war.
"1917," written by director Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns based loosely on stories told to Mendes by his grandfather, follows two young soldiers, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) on a mission given by General Erinmore (Colin Firth), to stop a regiment of Allies, 1,600 soldiers, from walking straight into a trap. The story, which I have just described, is simplicity itself, but what sets this movie apart from most (if not all) other war movies is how it has been crafted to look like one continuous shot, meaning that the viewer follows Blake and Schofield as they embark on their mission in real time.
Director Mendes sort of cut his teeth on this kind of shot in the first several minutes of the last James Bond film he directed, "Spectre" but here he takes the technique to the next level, really dropping viewers right into the action with the protagonists and conveying the urgency of their mission. There is, as a result, never a dull moment.
The camera work is nothing short of astonishing; considering that the two corporals are in near-constant motion, cinematographer Roger Deakins (who won a well-deserved second Oscar for this film) and his crew have to keep pace with them, and the tricks of the trade employed to help the camera move around huge craters and barbed wire fences are really the stuff that great films are made of. This isn't some simple drone hovering around and filming everyone; the camera gets up close and personal with the two soldiers, who take up most of the screentime, and keeps the audience very much in the moment.
Also, frequent Mendes collaborator Thomas Newman (who, like Deakins once was, is always unfortunately an Oscar bridesmaid but never the bride) turns in one of his more powerful and urgent scores, a bit of a contrast from what he's done before.
Because of the way Mendes has chosen to tell the story, though, there are inevitable tradeoffs. The story focuses so much on the mission that potentially strong thematic elements, like the fact that World War I was by and large a case of wealthy people sending working class people off to die rather than some just crusade against evil, inevitably fall by the wayside. Mendes does drop hints of it, like Schofield's disdain for the medal he received for valor at the Battle of Somme, and a bit of dialogue in which a General shouts at his subordinates to remove a fallen tree while he sits in his car, and makes me wonder what a more thought-provoking narrative about World War I would have been like. As it is, though, these questions take a back seat to the spectacle.
But oh, what spectacle it is.
8.5/10
