1917
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Written by: Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Starring: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Daniel Mays, Adrian Scarborough, Claire Duburcq
Drama/War - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Dec 2019
Written by: Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Starring: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Daniel Mays, Adrian Scarborough, Claire Duburcq
Drama/War - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Dec 2019
Military planners and practitioners did not know it at the outset, but The Great War was a defensive war. With the advent of barbed wire and machine guns, any side could hunker down and absorb tireless artillery bombardments and mow down waves upon waves of charging soldiers. Generals who came of age with horse cavalry and muskets were prepared to fight an offensive war, hence the carnage of the globe’s first war fought on an industrial scale with still unimaginable losses. Using his grandfather’s stories of his time in the war, writer/director Sam Mendes takes us into the trenches with two low-ranking soldiers who epitomize an entire generation of boys lost for the sake of some 500 yards of muddy, barren, and cursed landscape. Shot to look like a single take to lock the audience in together with the characters in what seems like real time, 1917 is more ticking clock thriller than strategic battlefield analysis - the absurdity of it all will come later.
Trench warfare is a doctrinal term to fancy up what in reality are mud and graveyards. Separating two sides fighting over the assassination of a random Archduke is a No Man’s Land full of rotting horses, rats the size of bowling balls, and corpses so mutilated by subsequent rounds of munitions, good luck guessing what side they fought for. Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield are summoned to the General’s bunker. They are to deliver a direct order to a battalion to cancel tomorrow morning’s attack. If they fail, 1,600 men will die including Blake’s brother. The order will save lives, but considering they must travel through German lines, it may also cost both Blake and Schofield theirs.
Trench warfare is a doctrinal term to fancy up what in reality are mud and graveyards. Separating two sides fighting over the assassination of a random Archduke is a No Man’s Land full of rotting horses, rats the size of bowling balls, and corpses so mutilated by subsequent rounds of munitions, good luck guessing what side they fought for. Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield are summoned to the General’s bunker. They are to deliver a direct order to a battalion to cancel tomorrow morning’s attack. If they fail, 1,600 men will die including Blake’s brother. The order will save lives, but considering they must travel through German lines, it may also cost both Blake and Schofield theirs.
Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman, Blinded by the Light) is off and running. To hell with personal safety and the overall rationale of the order, he must save his brother. Schofield (George MacKay, Captain Fantastic) is a bit more hesitant. Yes, the duo must attempt the impossible, but perhaps a bit of prior planning is in order. They have until morning, why not wait to pass at night? Their perilous trek is a guided tour of the war’s topography. The hellscape of No Man’s Land, tripwire laden German trenches, and eviscerated French villages are a few of the nightmare scenarios the boys encounter. Hovering above the Corporals, the audience, and just about everyone we run into is the nagging uncertainty of it all. What is the point? Why are any of us doing this?
Cinematographer Roger Deakins is relentless. His camera never stops moving. We experience every passing second with the duo performing some of the most well-prepared choreography, due to the long takes, ever seen in a war film. Most of the action is exteriors and never in the same location; therefore, it would be nigh impossible to light. The production must have had to wait for another cloudy day if they wanted to try a scene again. The Germans pulled back. They left behind a labyrinth of booby traps, destroyed anything of value, chopped down the trees, and razed the villages in the way. The British believe them to be on the run; however, the Germans have simply coalesced behind more fortified lines - what we now know as the Hindenburg Line. It is the spring of 1917 and even though the humans are doing their utmost to tear it to shreds, nature continues to bloom and look upon war’s collateral damage.
In the film’s most gut-wrenching, yet perfect, scene, we encounter what appears to be a young mother and her baby caught in an impossible situation amongst Germans who just murdered the rest of the citizenry and are in the process of erasing the town from the map. English and French struggle to comprehend one another, but dialogue is unnecessary. We all know the war cares nothing for these innocents. Thomas Newman’s score, especially in the night scenes, transforms from wary strings into something far more surreal as we watch human bodies move more out of habit than for any particular motivation. Due to a combination of moving upon sacred ground and letting unexploded ordnance and undiscovered bodies lie, the production did not film in France, but in the U.K.
The film’s leads are not film stars; those are reserved for the small roles. Colin Firth is the General with the orders, Mark Strong is a Captain far more observant than most, and Benedict Cumberbatch is a Colonel who knows next week he will received a different set of orders contradicting these. Blake and Schofield represent the nameless men. It is their ilk who comprise the millions of unmarked white crosses which litter northeast France. There are libraries full of books which believe they can explain the why of World War I, but these boys are way past why. They are tired, hungry, and live in the mud. They find the Lieutenant who thinks the General is an idiot and the grunts who think the Lieutenant is a moron. This spirit is alive and well in the ranks even today. Blake and Schofield are merely one story is a larger war intersecting a thousand other stories along the way. May mankind learn one day to stop the circumstances which create these stories.
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