1917 is a
film that totally reimagines the First World War in cinematic terms and the
results are spectacular. It is a completely immersive cinematic experience that
will, at times, make you catch your breath with astonishment.
Full disclosure. This film was co-written by
Krysty Wilson-Cairns who was a student of mine for two years. I am of course
immensely proud of her but that friendship has not influenced this review.
She and director Sam Mendes have crafted a script
that encourages us to see a familiar conflict through entirely different eyes,
it is a fresh perspective on a genre that has become calcified with clichés.
Whether it is All
Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Shoulder
Arms (1918), or the most recent version of Journey’s End (2018) , World War One movies operate within a
specific set of tropes mostly involving waterlogged trenches, traumatised
soldiers, uncaring officers, and suicidal attacks. With 1917 we get, for the first time on screen, a more accurate vision
of the conflict.
This was a war of grinding attrition. The troops spent
as much time away from the front as they did on the firing line so there was a
lot of down time. It was a war of tedious longeurs punctuated by relatively
brief episodes of nerve-jangling fighting. They had to make a life for
themselves in this nightmare scenario and the film does a very good job of
normalising the hellscape. There are the usual decomposing bodies and shell
craters and sudden death but none of this is overly dwelt on. Instead the film
focuses on the impact this has had on the soldiers and how they cope with this
abnormal new normal.
The story is simple. It is a basic ticking clock
scenario. A regiment of British soldiers is about to launch an attack believing
the Germans have retreated. In fact new intelligence indicates the Germans have
merely withdrawn and regrouped and the regiment is now heading into a trap.
Two soldiers, Lance-Corporal Schofield (George
MacKay) and Lance-Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are ordered to deliver
a message to the commanding officer to call off the attack and save the
regiment. As an added incentive, one of the lives that might be saved is
Blake’s brother. They have sixteen hours to complete the hazardous mission and rescue
their comrades.
There is not a frame of film wasted in their
pursuit of the mission. Much has been made of Roger Deakins’ cinematography and
rightly so; this might be his finest work. Mendes wanted the film to appear as
if it was done in a single shot. This means that in the opening scene he pulls
back on Schofield and Blake and they take us through this nightmare. The
novelty fades quickly and you stop waiting for the cut that isn’t coming and
concentrate on the story. The film is so skilfully shot and directed that it
replicates the classic Hollywood dictum that the audience should never be aware
that they are watching a film. Here, Deakins’ camera and Lee Smith’s editing
create a uniquely immersive cinematic experience.
1917
also has something we seldom see in this kind of film; space. The frame is wide
and the images expansive as we take what might, in different circumstances, be
a walk in the country with Schofield and Blake. The war is something happening
around them not to them, beautifully indicated by plumes of smoke on the
horizon and the drone of a distant dogfight.
We also get the chance to know them as men and not
as soldiers. Despite the war being three years old Blake is still idealistic,
there’s still a touch of death or glory about him. He envies the fact that
Schofield has a medal. Schofield on the other hand is much more complex. He
hates the war but he doesn’t want leave; he loves his family so much that he
can’t bear to go home and see them for fear he may never return. They are both
fascinating characters and our engagement and involvement with them makes us
care so much more about what happens to them.
Chapman and MacKay are excellent and bring a
compelling script to life. Their journey is punctuated by brief cameos from a
sterling group of British actors. These include Colin Firth, Benedict
Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, and others. They are all fine but the slightly
haunted portrayal of a war weary officer by Mark Strong is the one that sticks
in the mind longest.
Mendes direction is flawless. His single-take
approach is undoubtedly a rod for his own back but he carries the weight well.
The story is immaculately paced, Mendes never allows us to lose sight of the
mission. In allowing the most emotive part of the film to effectively happen
off screen Mendes takes a big chance but, like everything else, it pays off
superbly. This is highly ambitious, risk-taking direction.
For all that there was one scene which nagged at
me. Towards the end of the film, the mission almost complete, Schofield
encounters a young Frenchwoman and an abandoned baby. My first thought was, no
matter how welcome the respite, that the scene was unearned sentiment. After
some reflection however it emerges instead, for me, as a pivotal moment.
This is Schofield’s Gethsemane. The family man
could linger just a little longer with this faux-family, the mission is almost
doomed to fail so why not just stay? But he realises that, to be biblical, this
cup cannot pass and he must drink it. For the sake of his comrades he must go
on.
It is a marvellous moment in a film that is by turns
moving, exciting, thrilling, suspenseful and never less than completely
involving. In some senses 1917 is a
film that evokes the mood of the war poets such as Sassoon or Owen or Brooke. As
Owen put it in his Anthem for Doomed
Youth
‘Their flowers the
tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a
drawing-down of blinds.’
Mendes and his cast and crew have taken those words and wrought them superbly as images in this magnificent film.
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