Filming a movie to look like it’s entirely one shot isn’t as unique a structural idea as every filmmaker who’s attempted it seems to think. Hitchcock of course, did it back in 1948 with Rope, and even he likely wasn’t the first. The highest profile example in recent years of this technical gimmick was Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman, which under the eye of master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki was really impressive, though thematically unnecessary.
Sam Mendes’ employment of this technique for his war film 1917 certainly has a stronger foundation for its usage: to illustrate the immediacy of war, the swiftness of its chaos and unpredictability, and the gargantuan pressure of a single mission. Putting the audience so vividly into the midst of the situation, forced to follow it along at the rate of its characters can allow for a level of understanding and intimacy few war movies have thoroughly conveyed. And that does come across some of the time during this film, and looks good as it does, Mendes having hired the other big name in cinematography, Roger Deakins to shoot it. Yet for as much momentum as the movie has, it’s missing something in substance as it follows two young soldiers delivering a message to a company commander on another front mounting an assault he doesn’t know is tactically suicide. The film plays more as an exercise in immersion than an interesting story, with neither of its leads all that compelling in their own right.
George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman are the two lance corporals, Schofield and Blake respectively, the latter motivated primarily out of his brother (Richard Madden) being part of the regiment they need to warn. The former hasn’t much personal stake in the mission, but a sense of honour and duty that drives him, and an emotional reservedness that MacKay plays with apt restraint. He’s more the lead than his partner is, and though his is the better performance it’s also the less relatable character, a man who rarely shows the physical and psychological ware of his experience -not necessarily an unrealistic portrayal of the average British tommy, but also not one that keenly resonates with a modern audience. Due to the pace and constant movement of the film, supporting characters are mostly cameo parts, which Mendes fills with both major British stars (Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch), and talented character actors (Adrian Scarborough, Daniel Mays), though the greatest of these is Andrew Scott as a cynically pessimistic lieutenant with a candor and wit straight out of Blackadder Goes Forth -a character I would rather see a movie about.
For his absence though, Mendes retains that bleak outlook in his recreation of First World War France to intricate detail. No Man’s Land is as toxic, muddy, and deadly as all accounts, rats scurry all through the waste and the trenches, bombed out and devastated buildings dot the countryside. We see a man die from a stabbing wound in real time, witness the collapse of a trench, and we’re there in the middle of it, almost able to smell the death and decay for ourselves. It’s in these moments of vivid and visceral detail that Mendes and Deakins’ choice of technical structure pays off.
Despite being the major selling-point however, it’s misleading to say the film is presented as a single take: there’s one very notable cut at the end of the second act, and it’s not hard to see where others are being made (a moment of darkness, an obscuring prop,etc.). The movies’ real triumph is one of staging and very particular storyboarding to ensure a seamless flow, moving from one set-piece to the next very much like a video game, with pacing and action direction to match. Indeed this film owes as much to Call of Duty as it does to All Quiet on the Western Front or Paths of Glory. And also as in video games, in spite of the conceit of an unbroken spell, 1917 plays very loose with its time: though two hours in length, the film takes place over at least two days, with midnight turning into morning within the span of about twenty minutes. A narrative convenience so as to keep the film fresh and accessible (or otherwise capture a Tarkofsky level of real-time slowness where nothing but walking happens for a good half hour) -the world by necessity must be made smaller. Instances of intensity and drama occur with startling frequency, new obstacles appearing at an alarming rate. I don’t begrudge this at all though, an emotional if not literal realization of the horrifying immediacy of so much danger and carnage that was the everyday life of many a First World War soldier, and it facilitates the films’ best sequence: an aimless nighttime walk through a derelict village with gorgeously captured firelight illuminating a beautiful ruin.
1917 is a curious film to experience; a deeper, more intimate dive into what serving in that war was like than I think I’ve ever seen expressed. Though it is perhaps too literal for its own good. The last First World War film I saw before this was the centennial Journey’s End, which captured much better the comradery, mental state, and pervading sense of gloom if never quite conveying the combat and war operations to such a degree of brutality. Nevertheless I would have liked some of that character to be present in 1917, I would have liked a humanity to match the strong technical feats. It’s an impressive movie to be sure, but I have my doubts it will be an abiding one.
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