Trailers are, by definition, designed to get your butt into a theater to see a movie. They’re commercials. That’s all they are. I know this, but I am hardly immune to a good one, especially if it’s something that is more or less in my wheelhouse anyway. My point is, that more or less describes my reaction to the trailer for 1917. I saw the trailer and really wanted to see the movie.
Granted, it’s meant for awards bait, so it didn’t come out in my neck of the woods right away. But it’s out now, and yeah, you know I saw it.
Directed by Sam Mendes, the story is based off stories Mendes’s grandfather told him about the older Mendes’ exploits during the first World War. Opening on a pair of soldiers relaxing somewhere in France, Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is summoned by a general and told to bring his kit and one other soldier. He opts for his friend next to him, Lance Corporal Will Schofield (George MacKay), and the two are given a highly crucial mission: cross over eight miles of potentially hostile territory before the following morning to hand-deliver orders to a Colonel, whose communication lines were all cut, and stop an attack that’s headed into a trap. To add to the incentive to save 1,600 men, Blake’s brother is an officer there who could be killed along with all the other soldiers.
Mendes uses an interesting technique here in that there are minimal obvious cuts. Set to look like one long cut, Mendes uses this to limit our view. There are always things going on in the background, or something happening just off-camera that whichever of the pair Mendes is following isn’t looking at. Furthermore, by casting a pair of little-known actors as his central pair, it makes the fact these are a pair of rather ordinary guys with no particularly special skills all the more apparent. Seeing these two men whom we have just met make a tense crawl over barbed wire in “no man’s land” without a single obvious edit is one really tense affair.
Now, there are a few recognizable faces in the movie, most of whom don’t have more than maybe ten minutes of screentime. That’s actually nice, and my personal favorite may be Mark Strong who has the least flashy guest appearance of the lot of them, quietly underplaying a role as a helpful officer offering what help and advice he can. By contrast, Benedict Cumberbatch gets a whole speech that may as well be the thesis for the whole movie.
But really, the star here is Mendes, his direction, and the script he co-wrote. His camera catches numerous shots of pure beauty among the destruction, and just to keep everyone on their feet, corpses of men and animals appear everywhere. His camera never sits still, giving the audience the feeling of tension to fit the characters’ predicaments, but still slows down for a quiet scene when necessary. 1917 isn’t just a wartime action movie. It’s saying something about war, World War I only superficially, and how everything may seem futile, but still brave soldiers have to try whether they want to or not.
Really, this was a high quality movie, better than its “one shot” gimmick might suggest. Check it out and see a master director at work. My only real complaints were beyond the movie’s control: I could hear a Bollywood musical through the multiplex’s wall during quieter scenes, and an older couple two seats over occasionally commented on the action. Not the movie’s fault, but still something I noticed all the same.
Grade: A-
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