Film: 1917
Rating: 3 Stars
I’ve written before about my fascination with World War I. Why it started, why this initially incredibly fast moving war turned into a four year quagmire, and how the absolute inhumanity shown to soldiers on all sides as the first fully realized military industrial complex came into being and turned war into a mass killing machine. Given the lack of dramatic moments in a meat grinder war, a war with no real clear good/bad guys (Treaty of Versailles assigning blame to Germany notwithstanding), and long periods of time of soldiers hiding in bunkers covered in mud, it’s never been a particularly popular war to film.
Given that, I was excited for the opportunity to see 1917.
It appears that the Germans are in full retreat and that this is an opportunity for a British attack to finally make a decisive break in the war. During air reconnaissance, this is discovered to be a German deceit. The Germans have retreated a few miles back to an even more fortified defensive position. If the British attack, they will be annihilated.
Two soldiers are recruited by a British general to deliver a message to the commanding officer of the attack to cancel it. One of the soldier’s brothers is part of the planned attack, thus giving him extra motivation to deliver the message and possibly save his brother’s life.
To deliver the message, the two soldiers must cross over British lines, the wasteland between the two lines, the earlier abandoned German lines, and a bombed out town to get to the British regiment. The soldiers must fight over many obstacles, including straggling Germans, in their attempt to complete their mission.
Visually it did not disappoint. The trenches, the casual death, the desolate wasteland between fronts, and the horror of a carnage taking place on the same piece of lands for years are all shown here. Rotting horses and soldiers are everywhere. The soldiers fight both boredom and madness while trapped in their trenches. The film did a good job of bringing the little known aspects of WWI fighting to light.
There is a gimmick to 1917. It is filmed in something approaching real time, apparently as one shot. Like Birdman, it is not actually one long shot. It’s a series of long takes that are cleverly stitched together. There are tremendous set pieces that must have been extremely difficult to film in this manner. Specifically, in the climatic scene, where one of the soldiers is sprinting horizontally along the length of the British lines as the other soldiers climb up over the trenches and commence their attack, is pretty amazing.
It’s a technically virtuoso cinematic feat. I do wonder how necessary it actually was. I understand that doing so brings an immediacy to the journey for the viewer. However, it could have been communicated just as well using conventional film making. This just seemed to be an example of showing off. How much of this was the director doing something just because he could and not so much because of its impact upon the story?
My other nitpick about the film is the plot itself. A small group of men conveyed with a mission that spans the entire battlefront is essentially the plot for many war films ranging from Saving Private Ryan to Apocalypse Now. I understand that this plot allows the protagonists to experience many different aspects of battle, but by now it just seems a little tired. Similarly, sending multiple individuals on a shared group mission serves as an announcement to the film audience that some in the group will experience grief as their number inevitably dwindles.
I enjoyed the film. I just wonder if the film would have received the same acclaim if the long shot gimmick wasn’t employed.
Did Sam Mendes watch Birdman and think to himself that I could do that and get me an Oscar?
dorkenstein 