Movie Reaction: 1917

Formula: Dunkirk / Gallipoli

For years, I found it odd how I knew seemingly everything about WWII and nothing about WWI. I even find this stuff interesting, and until I broke down and read a 400-page book about it, all I really knew about WWI was Archduke Franz Ferdinand and something about trench warfare. I get why WWII is more covered. It's a war that we have actual footage of. The U.S. was much more involved in the war. The WWII veterans have only recently moved from the grandparent to great-grandparent phase, so they've been around to tell their story. WWII had Hitler and the Nazis: easy villains. There's the holocausts that come with built-in sympathy. The style of fighting was diverse and interesting. Naval warfare. Air Warfare. Massive land assaults like D-Day.

WWI is a tougher sell. No one really gets why it was being fought (Short answer: a bunch of countries had treaties and got pulled into the fight). The U.S. only came in late to help, mostly as cleanup. There's little footage of it and fewer famous characters. Perhaps most importantly, trench warfare is boring. It's two sides firing a bunch of mortars at each other. Both sides traded the same trenches back and forth, often pushing forward only a few miles a year if at all.

Hollywood has finally picked the WWII bones clean though and they seem ready to look at WWI. War Horse was 2011, which isn't all that long ago. Last year, the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old was one of the most moving things I saw that year, the way it brought 100 year old footage to life. Now Sam Mendes tries to bring WWI to life with 1917.

Let's talk about the gimmick. If you know anything about 1917 beyond the trailer, it's that this movie is shot to look like one long, continuous shot. I'm completely in favor of this gimmick. Not because I don't think it's a gimmick. No, I'm in favor because I need war films to have a gimmick for me to care about them anymore. I've seen enough war epics to last a lifetime. At this point, I want to see something lean and technical. That's exactly what I liked about Dunkirk. Relatively short. Not bogged down by plot. Three rotating timelines and stories. Little dialogue. It was more concerned with mood than traditional story elements. It made me care about WWII for the first time in a while. So, I love the 1917 tracking shot. It's a technical feat. It isn't seamless, nor does it try to be. You can tell where a lot of actual cuts happen. However, the tracking shot isn't used to actually trick people into thinking they did it Russian Ark-style, actually in one take. The tracking shot is used to create intimacy and continuity. It means more seeing a beautiful countryside turn into a bombed-out battlefield when it happens in an unblinking transition. You appreciate the length and intricacy of trench warfare when you follow characters trying to move through one. When the movie ended, I was struck by conflicting feelings. It felt like the characters had both gone so far and barely any distance at all. Unlike, say, Birdman, this continuous take structure is very necessary for the story Sam Mendes is telling and has a compounding effect by the end.

The story is incredibly simple. Two young soldiers (Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay) have to deliver a message, going across enemy lines, to stop 1,600 British soldiers from walking into a trap. That's it. It plays a lot like a video game. They run into a number of obstacles like going through no man's land, sneaking through an enemy-controlled town, and exploring an abandoned farm. They run into familiar actors along the way (Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, and others) who either give them items or advice before disappearing. It's a mission-based movie. You slowly get to know the two main-characters, but the best parts are when it's too tense to talk.

And, I have to say, the ending, even though much of it is "spoiled" in the trailer, is absolutely thrilling. I saw this on the biggest loudest screen I could, and it was the most exciting thing I've seen in a while. I'm not great at appreciating the "below the line" parts of movies, but I can say that all of it (sound, production design, costuming, visual effects, score) is top notch. I've been mixed on Sam Mendes' previous films (American Beauty has aged terribly, Skyfall is somewhat overrated, Away We Go and Jarhead I forget were even his movies), so this easily tops the list for me.

In hindsight, I should've waited to put together my best of 2019 list, because 1917 would rank near or at the top. I can't make anyone care about war movies who don't normally care about them. But, I will say that 1917 is a more emotional Dunkirk. It's got a pair of strong performances at the center. It's an immersive experience. I don't want to build expectations too high for it, but I really loved this movie.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend