1917

Ten Second Review: Certainly impressive, but some aspects of 1917 may serve to take you out of the flow.

Opening to near-universal praise, I’d rather hoped to see 1917 a touch earlier than I managed to. It’s reception was hard to miss and it doesn’t make seeing a film with fresh and clean eyes particularly easy. 

When lance corporal Blake is sent on a mission with the person sitting closest to him, he’s no idea what he’s getting himself into. A gruelling nine-mile trek through enemy territory to reach a battalion about to go over the top to take a warning of an ambush. Following the pair, 1917 takes you on a WWI story handed down from director Sam Mendes’ grandfather.

I will hazard against watching the trailer too closely as it may spoil the film a little!

This film really is a tale of two cities. Examined as a technical piece of filmmaking it is phenomenal. The long shots and fully played out scenes never cease to feel fresh and energetic. The first 40 minutes of the film will have you riveted for every moment and the climax will similarly leave you with your heart in your throat. 

The claustrophobia of the trenches and the bleak baron wastelands of no man’s land pair to make a tense film that borders on being a thriller. When it’s gripping it really doesn’t let go and while a simple but effective story helps this, it’s the filmmaking that really sells it.

The film weakens in the middle with a section that calms the whole piece down before sending us straight back into the fray. While I’m sure the filmmakers had reason to add this scene; breaking up the tense action, a non-combatant focused moment or maybe even its existence in the stories that Mendes’ grandfather told, it really didn’t add enough to demand the screen time or attention. We already understand how human the characters are and we know what’s at stake. It only really dilutes the story overall in a way that doesn’t feel worth the extra runtime. 

A small note but it was similarly disengaging to see star-studded cast keep popping up. It really felt like a film that would have benefitted from a more unknown cast. Instead, we got a who’s who of British actors that would appear routinely to take us out of the story while we collectively as an audience go “oooh, didn’t expect him to be in it”. If the big names aren’t being used to sell the film then they only really serve a distraction.

I cannot express how great a film to watch this is but I wonder if a little more cutting could have made it a better experience overall. I will certainly return to it but I can’t say that’s its flawless or in any way fault free. I would suggest seeing this in a cinema, it certainly gains form the big screen treatment but don’t feel the need to find the biggest screen in the world.