At the risk of going against my own personal brand, I genuinely loved a war film. I can not deny the sheer greatness and magnificent storytelling that Sam Mendes' 1917 exhibits and I can confidently say that I would not be opposed to this film winning Best Picture. There is so much to adore about this movie, including the solid direction from Mendes and most evidently, the cinematography from the revered Roger Deakins that makes this film stand out more than anything else. The "one-take" trick that is used throughout this entire film is a creative choice that was done excellently and surprisingly enhanced my overall experience. Lots of technical prowess is definitely needed nowadays to keep audiences from forgetting about the typical, dull, war story but I am overjoyed that this film provides plenty of said prowess that fully kept me engaged. While the performances and entirety of the script could have used a bit more emotion, the true power of 1917 is absolutely transporting its audience into the hellish landscape of World War I.
Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) are two British soldiers during WWI that are assigned a very important duty with only hours to spare. Tasked with delivering a cease-fire message to another faction of their army, the two must cross the infamous "No Man's Land" and survive the trip to the other faction in order to stop the possible slaughter of their soldiers after the Germans have planted a trap. I have never and still am not a huge fan of the war genre, as I find it becomes dull very quickly. There are only certain movies that stand out to me as memorable and there are also only a certain number of stories that filmmakers can respectfully tell. While many directors take creative liberties to tell a story from a different perspective, akin to Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit, the slew of these kinds of movies typically does not differ from the expected, emotionally gut-punching stories that we as an audience are fed. Sam Mendes, thankfully, is able to utilize some incredibly creative technical choices to help tell this story, even with the lack of focus on the script or character development. Mendes is able to masterfully utilize genuine moments of love and tenderness in this film and even in a setting where there seems to be no hope for peace, these particular scenes are sprinkled in so well to add a much-needed touch of humanity to this otherwise relentlessly violent story. The performances throughout this film helped to tell its story as well. Chapman and MacKay were both amazingly solid in their roles and did a fantastic job of embodying the raw emotion that plagues these soldiers. The supporting roles were fantastic as well, including the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, and Richard Madden. None of these performances particularly stood out more than another but they are all incredible at nailing drama, which is what they do best.
The obvious standout element of this film, however, is the cinematography from Roger Deakins paired with Lee Smith's editing. War films have to be technically stunning and what Dunkirk does with sound, 1917 does with cinematography. Deakins is unexpectedly the best part of this entire film and the use of "single-take" cinematography proves to be an excellent creative choice for the movie. Upon first hearing about this style of storytelling, I was wary that the film would feel very cheaply done or gimmicky but thankfully, I did not feel that at all. The "single-take" style makes this movie entirely environmental and leaves so much room for these characters to breathe while creating such a vast and often terrifying world. As for the editing, Smith did a wonderful job hiding all of the cuts throughout this film. Whether it's my careful eye as an editor or not, a lot of the cuts were fairly obvious but regardless, Smith still did a flawless job of smoothing out the shots. The script and actual dialogue throughout this film were pretty lacking, but that frankly does not matter when a movie like this is able to draw you in with its production value. Because of Deakins and Smith's work on the film, they also almost force their audience into thinking in terms of physical location and distance rather than runtime. This gave me such a completely new perspective on how to watch a film and I definitely adore the technical wonders that these filmmakers accomplished.
As previously mentioned, war films nowadays basically have to do something innovative with their technicals in order to keep their audience interested, which made way for 1917's incredible visual storytelling. Sam Mendes' direction, unfortunately, is where I found some of my slight issues with this story. Mendes is an incredible director but my main problem is that I do not feel like his style is individually strong enough to distinguish himself from others. Anyone could have told me that some other drama-driven director made this film and I would have easily believed them. There is nothing particularly wrong with how Mendes handles this story, but the direction is not too remarkable and I wish that its creative power did not have to entirely rely on Deakins. I also did not feel like this film had much to say in regards to war, which is one of history's most prominent topics. Besides the usual story of endurance and survival through the horrors of war, there was not much to this film. It was still unbelievably strong but I wished that there was more time devoted to putting emotion in these characters. Despite my minor wishes for further development, Mendes is a master of pacing and 1917 will undoubtedly keep its audience frustratingly entertained, as it even provides one of the most stunningly gorgeous escape sequences I have ever laid eyes upon.
1917 has done a better job of fully immersing me in a warzone environment better than any film of the genre has done before. With some bare yet still impressive storytelling and cinematography that I had no doubt would blow me away, this film is undeniably my favorite of this tired genre. I went into 1917 not entirely knowing what to expect but the fact that Sam Mendes could get me to be invested in a story about war is enough to win me way over.
My Rating: ★★★★
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