1917 REVIEW

I don't really watch trailers, anymore, if I can help it. I find trailers can often contain plot spoilers, or ruin emotional beats by re-contextualising them in a way that more says "buy tickets for this movie" than whatever it was meant. The logical extreme for this is the trailer for Broken City, a movie which literally has the final scene in the movie a prevalent part of the trailer. Honestly, I wish more companies would adopt the Endgame style of trailers, wherein it literally shows the first 5 or 10 minutes of the movie, tops.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, because I think the trailer for 1917, in many ways, is misleading for 1917.

Let's start with the basic plot; two soldiers in World War I are making a dangerous, 36 hour trek to bring important news that could save the lives of 1,600 soldiers. It's a dangerous path through No Man's Land but, with one of our leads having a brother in the endangered battalion, he will stop at nothing to make sure they deliver this message.

The film is wonderfully acted, that much is certain, with cameos from some gold-standard British and Irish talent. Andrew Scott, in particular, gives an incredible and memorable performance for so little screen time. But the main focus is our two leads and, it's safe to say, they do an incredibly difficult job, and they do it damn well.

Dean-Charles Chapman does a great job at playing a somewhat naive but earnest soldier, answering the call of duty for the sake of his own medal. While George MacKay is, in my opinion, the more compelling lead, and the one who most reflects the attitudes from the war, I feel; a sense of "we're here because we have to be, I'd rather the war not be happening at all than get a medal for fighting in it".

Sam Mendes is an great filmmaker, this much is certain, but I can't help but feel that the films main filmmaking draw is also it's biggest weakness. Y'see, the film is designed to be filmed in one take; no jumpcuts, no flashbacks, all done in one fluid camera motion. This is no small undertaking, and it is definitely impressive. Indeed, my inner filmmaker had a little bit of a squee at how great some of the transitions and colour uses were, especially as, again, it all had to be done flawlessly. I also like how it reflects real life, in the sense that you're not always looking at the most important thing - a character at one point is stabbed off-screen and we only see the aftermath and have to put the pieces together. I like it, it's excellently done.

However, I also think there's a certain emotional response which you can only get from a well cut-together scene, and a well cut-together scene is impossible with no cuts at all. For example, during a firefight scene, while it feels a lot more realistic to just see bullet impacts and think "Oh, shit, that was close", you could also build anxiety through quick, close cuts of the leads, the bullet impact, all sorts of stuff. The sound mixing also favours realism over emotional impact which, as I've stated, is more impressive, but not necessarily better.

A one-shot take is naturally slower and more methodical, especially with the steadiness of the piece. It feels more choreographed and, as such, it took me out of the idea that they were in any REAL danger, which took me out of it, personally. And, again, this is nobody's fault; this is just a risk which comes from a one-take approach. It's like the lightsaber fights in the Empire Strikes Back VS Attack of the Clones. The latter is more choreographed and more impressive, certainly, but it's also less emotional than Luke emotionally breaking and just wailing on Darth Vader. I think, if I'd have been the directer of this particular piece, I would've taken a Thunder Road-esque approach - a lot of one-take shots, but not afraid to cut to add emotion through editing. Much like the trailer implies the film will be like, in fact.

This criticism is not including the slightly weird scripting choices at some parts. Namely, an extended scene with a French woman and a baby feels crow-barred in. Also, the depiction of the German soliders as these horrific, disgusting individuals feels more akin to a WW II story, than it's predecessor. These are things which take me out of the otherwise excellent aspects of the writing. Also, if you're so keen to keep us realistically engaged, the decision to add subtitles to the French dialogue is pandering and also serves to cheapen the reality of the war, at least in my opinion.

This sounds so much more negative than I wanted to, because I assure you that this film is great, and definitely worth your time. While I was watching it, I felt like it was an 8 but, once I'd stepped out of the cinema, I think a 7 is more fitting - that is to say, 3 and a half stars. Definitely worth your time and a definite achievement in filmmaking, but technical impressiveness can sometimes come at the cost of emotional responses. In fact, the two are almost like warring factions.