4 / 5
The four-year Great War holds infinite possibilities to creating cinematic masterpieces. Focusing on a lone soldier trudging through the battlegrounds of man-made hell can provide quite the meditation on human mortality, with many directors continuously proving viewers wrong about the shrinking originality of films retelling the countless needless massacres of the young and brave. While one may think the war genre cannot be topped after witnessing the rapidly-shot up-front brutality of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan or the morbid randomness of the psychological meditation Apocalypse Now, it soon becomes clear that one needs only shift the currents of character-focus, calmer or more bullet-synching editing and balance of emotionally-ticking calm and bullet-tearing grit to repackage the war stories into a new visual revolution. But with Sam Mendes’ new budget-fattened war story 1917, the man responsible for visual caffeine like Skyfall has just brought one of the most unique and revolutionary achievements in cinematic storytelling of the decade and a genius new professional tactic into immersing one with the trenches.
Lance Corporal Schofield and Blake awake from a rare moment of rest under a tree and proceed through their trench to collect awaiting orders from General. Upon realising they’re responsible to deliver an urgent message to a far-distant Corporal to save 1,600 troops from a German ambush, the two make haste to trape the unpredicted battlegrounds to save their allies’ lives. Now one might be impressed to notice the 5-minute take of Schofield and Blake venturing through the vibrant, stretcher-trailing trenches to meet the big men, the camera swerving miraculously round at a shoulder’s height to immerse one in the superbly-detailed environment littered with countless extras. But as you steadily see the take surviving the cut as the two venture beyond the allied comfort, into the ghost barren No Man’s Land, into several sniper duels and sprinting-through-bullets montages, it becomes clear Mendes has his own little achievement in mind. 1917 seamlessly appears to have been executed in a single take.
Executed by the legendary Roger Deakins, known for other visual masterpieces like Blade-Runner 2049, 1917’s cinematography is possibly one of the best elements of the entire war genre. While the illusion of a single take, with well-disguised cuts, has long been possible, this move can be considered the film’s entire purpose, with disregard for everything else in film-successes just to get the bragging rights out. But Deakins proves himself worthy on a whole new scale here, seamlessly following a true-grit narrative with inventive flows into close-ups and long-shots with a variety of camera techniques to sledgehammer you his vision of a mesmerising, occasionally seat-gripping, immersion through countless flavours of le WW1 scenario.
Unfortunately, beyond cinematography into substance, 1917 falls a little flat with characters. It’s solely about the sole-scraping immersion into the lone soldiers’ journey and the biting connection with every silence while constantly risking one’s head, and is worth it for the sole spectacle. The single-take also takes advantage of emphasising sudden transitions from calmly allied to isolated and targeted at alarmingly-snappy speed, and sniper duels have rarely felt as suspenseful with bullets flying without blinking, as you’re forced to follow Schofield’s mortal, imperfect pace into near-certain death. Mendes also knows how to toy with perspective on distance, perceiving a dogfight as a background spectacle before seamlessly shifting to a shocking up-close alarm without breaking the ‘take’.
1917’s set-pieces are also exceptionally-wrought, with the spectrum of detailed constructed environments the duo venture through efficiently brings out tangible moods from George MacKay and Dean Charles Chapman’s solid performances as the two Lance Corporals. But given how relentlessly overdone bull-blown action montages are in the industry, it’s the smaller moments of bonding talk while venturing through unpredictable yet homely-familiar fields the two have that are the film’s defining moments. Where the script falls, the cinematography picks up.
But even for an exceptional director and cinematographer, original ideas do run out. 1917 unfortunately begins to eventually sacrifice realistic suspense to venture into straight-blockbuster cinematic. Most notably, a quite laughable sequence of a tired Schofield venturing through a burning town to see a distorted enemy figure, both approaching the other through firey smoke like a superhero flick finale. Its sluggish desperation still remains captivating through switching tactics of survival, from breath-holding hiding-in-shadows to blind frenzy bullet-chases, but this still makes one think back to the past slow but wary venturing moments that truly made the film special. It’s only until the bittersweet worn-traveller finale that that unique immersion is restored.
1917 is possibly one of the most important cinematographic achievements in recent years. Deakins deserves a medal of honour for his craftsman methodology to bringing a new unblinking perspective to an already-engaging WW1 story. While characters and high-stakes may not always hit the high notes, its its unflinching up-close brutality of survival seamlessly woven with long-take atmospherical elements through a traveller’s wide spectrum of dangers that makes this a surreal breath of originality into experiencing the horrors of war. They shall not grow old and neither shall the commemorative films.