Currently one of the frontrunners to win Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards, 1917 brings the horrors of World War I with a presentation made to look it’s a one long continuous shot. Here’s our High Five review.
1917 follows Blake (Dean Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George Mackay), two British soldiers assigned to deliver a message to the commanding officer setting an attack, alongside 1,600 men, to the German enemies. The message: Germans knew the attack, retreated from their location, and have installed a deadly trap to their opposers.Â
One shot
The real catch of Blake and Schofield’s mission is that the mission must be sent within eight hours. Hiding from possible enemy troops, the two had to walk extreme lengths in order to reach their target location. With a set-up built with urgency, it’s only natural for director Sam Mendes and his team to narrate the entire thing in real time, the genesis of their decision to have it with no clear cuts in the edit.
The result is an immersive look at the war’s desolate battlegrounds. Cinematographer Roger Deakins sweeps the camera from the mountains, to underground shelters, to a rapid-moving river. It’s an immense feat that stands as one of his best works. Also impossible to not wonder how they were able to accomplish such really complex camera tricks seamlessly.
Apocalypse nigh
A crucial part of the film’s technical requirements is the production design. I’m most impressed with what they were able to do here. Dennis Gassner, the production designer, had to build huge sets as a necessity to satisfy the “one-shot” approach.
It’s also refreshing to see practical sets of this scale and not being too reliant on computer effects machinery. They were able to paint almost apocalyptic looks of this period successfully.
More focus
For its technical merits, it’s easy to assume 1917 will undoubtedly sweep the technical awards come Oscars.Â
However, I do find its messaging on anti-war in need of more focus. The film can be too engaged in immersing its audience to its showy technical aspects that it tends to diminish raw growth for its characters.
Mackay and Chapman are great in their roles. I just wish we actually get to see more of them as complete characters instead of being very fixated to the fact that dangers can be present at every corner.
Filmmaking 101
For what it was, I think the film is best appreciated in a classroom, dissecting and evaluating its technicalities.
If not thematically weak, 1917 was able to pull off the kind of cinema magic that best defines the medium as a powerful tool to not only tell a story, but craft interesting images.
Verdict
1917 is an exhausting watch for good reasons. It’s exciting to see war movies like this become committed to a challenge as a way to enhance its storytelling. It’s exciting to be at awe with how they pull off the challenge. I genuinely hope we got more than awe given its strong subject matter.
4 waves out of 5 for 1917.