1917

I am going to put my cards on the table straight away here and state that I think this film is a near masterpiece. It kind of caught me by surprise the way I came to that conclusion, having not being that excited about it at all, even when it was scooping up awards nominations left, right and centre. I wondered how good it could be? The pitch felt familiar and a bit overdone. And the chat around the amazing effects and one continual camera shot seemed a bit gimmicky. I was quite happy to let it pass me by as a cinema experience at the time.

In retrospect, you have to question the marketing tactics, because it should have been pushed as a ubiquitous watch, to the point of making people scared to miss it. I do admire that it held on to its class and dignity a bit more than that though; the producers must have been very confident they had something special and allowed it to find its audience naturally. I certainly remember every friend who did venture into the cinema for it reporting nothing but awe and wonder, and quite rightly.

The story of Lance Corporal Schofield’s mission impossible to deliver a vital message over miles of deadly and eerie no man’s land in a limited time is compelling from minute one, and rarely let’s you catch your breath. You begin to feel like it is your mission, that your fate is bound up with the character, played with restraint and naive likeability by the very watchable George MacKay. I’m not going to detail the journey here for spoilers sake, but suffice to say it is a sequence of increasingly impressive, terrifying, emotional and memorable moments that compile into a whole that is entirely magical and meaningful.

Like the war itself, it feels exhausting, dirty, chaotic and filled with odd beauty. There is something of a fever dream about it that reinforces how absurd and randomly sad war truly is. Death lurks and stalks each person in this film like a shadow, and often it is as much a welcome friend as an enemy to be feared. There is an underlying sensibility to the direction and incredible imagery that sings a soulful lament in the background of your mind, and it captures a sense of poetic tragedy that simply doesn’t exist in the majority of war films. There is nothing mawkish or manipulative about the emotion here; just an overwhelming feeling of tiredness, waste and loss.

One thing that really impressed me is the way one moment segues into the next, and not just because of the one shot novelty, although that certainly is a great technical achievement. It’s more how the ball is never dropped, and moments following a huge set-piece never sink back into anti-climax or a malaise where the audience can switch off and disengage – it simply keeps going and going and going, until you are begging for release as much as Schofield.

There is also a series of superb supporting work to admire, from characters who have their moment and then disappear: Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden and Benedict Cumberbatch all deliver strong memorable performances that act as milestones along Schofield’s path. Together with a plethora of lesser known young men who embody the common soldier perfectly, with particular praise for Dean-Charles Chapman, who shows a lot of promise for the future in a crucial role. The lack of a female presence is fully conscious here, and to say more on that subject would be to ruin one of the film’s finest scenes.

Ultimately though it is Sam Mendes’ film. His grasp and control of the material is expert at a minimum and consummate genius at best. In the end the film only won 3 Oscars, for Roger Deakins’ sublime Cinematography (complete no-brainer, simply astonishing), sound mixing and visual effects, which unlike many films never show off but merely serve the story in breathtaking style. You have to wonder then if Mendes wasn’t a wee bit robbed by the fact that Parasite snuck up on the outside rails in the “let’s acknowledge international cinema” year…? Personally, I think 1917 is the better film. Although, of course, it is harsh to compare such different artistic achievements, as ever.

All I can say is that if you are not in tears by the end of 1917 you have to see a doctor, because you might be dead or have a heart of stone, both of which are very serious conditions! One hundred plus years away from the horrors and reality of WWI, it is hard to know if what we perceive as historically accurate actually is, or if the amalgam of images from all the other movies and tv shows over the years has made a mosaic in our minds of what we imagine is authentic. Either way, this film is as close to my imagination of that war as I ever want to go. And the way I felt as I watched the credits role for the first time will always stay with me as a memorable moment in the pantheon of my reactions to great movies.

It isn’t perfect, because what is? But I find it hard to think of a fault in the sense of something I’d want to change or add. I do think it achieves its goal 100%. And that is good enough to make it great, in my opinion. I hope that as the years pass its place in critical history within the genre of war movies only increases in appreciation. I think it genuinely deserves to be in the same conversation as the very best; mature, human, tragic, worthy of reflection and just really really powerful.

Decinemal Rating: 81