Review: 1917 tackles the horrors of World War I in a brilliant way

1917 has experienced a bit of a staggered release, getting a small release in the US last year and then bigger ones everywhere else this year. This was an effort to make the film eligible for 2020 awards season, and it worked; the movie has been recognised by more than 30 organisations, with more than a hundred nominations in different categories. Just recently, it won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

This World War I epic deserves all of its accolades, and then some. It is an astonishing technical achievement on every level, with visuals that will chill you to the bone. With 1917, director Sam Mendes evokes in you the only emotion a war movie should ever make you feel: horror. Pure, unbridled horror. 

Alright, let’s not get dramatic. What’s it about?

1917 is set in…well, 1917. At the height of World War I, two young British soldiers are given an extremely dangerous mission: they have to cross No Man’s land and deliver a message to a fellow infantry regiment, warning them of an incoming ambush by the German forces. The two soldiers, William Schofield and Tom Blake, could save the lives of 1,600 soldiers by delivering this message - Blake’s own brother being one of them. 

As far as stories go, this isn’t the most complicated one to unfold. Schofield and Blake fall into one dangerous situation after the next - with barely a second of rest between them. No matter how excruciatingly difficult the journey gets, however, they must deliver the message. Loyalty to their commanding officers gives William a constant drive - but for Blake, it’s all about saving his brother. 

I hear this movie was shot in one take?

This is a personal story for 1917’s director to tell. Mendes was told a ‘fragment’ of the true story by his grandfather - Alfred Mendes, who had fought in the war. The film came from an intimate place, and Mendes uses a unique way to translate that onto the screen. 1917 is shot almost entirely to look like one continuous take. That means there are little to no obvious cuts, and characters sprint from one area to the next with viewers experiencing the whole journey minute-by-minute. 

One-take sequences are astonishingly hard to pull off. For one, you need to coordinate an entire cast and crew to execute each and every one of their jobs perfectly on the dot for an extended time, whereas shorter takes are much easier to film and edit together later. Daredevil Season 1’s fight scene, Children of Men’s car scene and True Detective Season 1’s raid scene are all excellent examples of what can be accomplished when a whole scene is allowed to unfold without any cuts. 

The result is that we feel immediately, almost uncomfortably connected to these characters and with no cuts to give us some distance, we’re fully immersed in whatever they’re going through. 1917 makes use of this method of filmmaking brilliantly, injecting even the most intimate moments on screen with palpable tension. 

When Schofield and Blake get on their bellies and crawl through mud and dirt in no man’s land for example, the camera stays with them the entire way - ratcheting up the tension with every passing second. Any moment now, a bomb is going off, a bullet is going to fly or a character is going to die. You feel it coming - and that feeling never goes away.

If it is even possible for Roger Deakins to one-up himself anymore, he has here. The award-winning cinematographer has crafted iconic visuals in movies like No Country for Old Men, Skyfall and Blade Runner 2049, so it’s little surprise that 1917 is shot just as beautifully. The whole film is a mind-boggling effort - the camera moves across lakes, up hills and across explosive battlefields so steadily (and in one take) that I wonder how all of it was even possible.

How about the actors?

George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman did an outstanding job, considering that they have to pretty much nail entire action sequences at one go. MacKay in particular was fantastic in this. He acts as our eyes into the horrific events of World War I, and we immediately become invested in his journey because of it. 

Schofield and Blake wade through rivers full of bodies, dive away from bullets and get buried under a rockslide - and that’s not even the half of it. It was clearly an extremely physically demanding role for the two of them, but they pulled it off. I got anxious whenever they were about to get into trouble - and them getting into trouble is pretty much 90% of this movie. 

There are a handful of big names in this movie, like Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch. The way 1917’s story is told means that we never see these actors onscreen for long, since the two main characters are always moving from one place to the other - but it’s always a pleasant surprise when a familiar face pops up in the story for a couple minutes. Andrew Scott in particular was hilarious in the small amount of screentime he had here. 

War is hell, huh?

1917 reminds me a lot of Mad Max: Fury Road. Both of these movies do stellar things with very thin plotlines. 1917 tells a fairly simple and straightforward story - a race against time as two young soldiers fight to prevent the death of 1600 people by sending a message to the right person. 

It’s the execution of this story that really makes the movie work. The one-take sequences fill this movie to the brim with pure, heart-pounding intensity, but it isn’t afraid to stop every once in a while and give audiences a breather. Schofield and Blake have small moments of humanity in between the horrors of World War I, which remind us of how both of them could have just been at home - living the life they reminisce about if things had gone differently. 

1917 is an undeniable achievement in cinematic filmmaking, and a cut above every other war movie I’ve seen in a long time. Watch it big and loud - the sound design alone calls for it. 

***

10/10 long takes

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