Personal Rating: 9 Out of 10
Director: Sam Mendes
Writer: Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Cast: Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay
Genre: Drama, War
Its been so long since I wrote movie reviews. Couldn’t find the motivation to continue forward due to some personal and heavy reasons. The past year was not kind to me. But that irresistible poking in the back of my head motivated me to start writing again.
As it was to me 2019 was also not such a good year for movie enthusiasts who like to cherry pick their options and give only some of the films released the honor of being in the category of best movies. But even after being almost a dull year, Hollywood gave us only a few but some feisty, punch packed films. And as you guessed “1917” falls in line among such great epics.
Like every other war-action movies, most notably”Saving Private Ryan”, as the pinnacle of this genre, 1917 is not your daily dilly-dally war story based movie. It is a cinematic masterpiece. Though many might have doubts as perception vary men to men. It is an astonishing movie with great acting, background score, short and sweet cameos and the most notable aspect of this film is it is a semi-one cut movie.
Sam Mendes conjoined the cuts and turned it into a seamless one shot cinema. This immerses the viewers into the real story upon which the film is based on as described by Sam Mendes’s grandfather, a first WW veteran.
!!SPOILER WARNING!! PLEASE SKIP THE FOLLOWING PART TO AVOID SPOILERS!!
The movie opens with two lance corporals, Blake and Schofield, and through the trenches, war torn yet beautiful landscape of northern France . They voluntarily enlist to go beyond enemy lines to deliver a message. The Germans have strategically fallen back and set up an ambush as a last stand and the 1600 fellow troops of the lance corporal including ones brother is going to fall in that trap, hence they volunteered.
From a cherry blossomed court yard to the hellish, milky white sand filled trenches, and from the quite, silent nights to a “danger close” dogfight, the story will drive the viewers to sweat and bite their nails off from the suspense and anxiety.
Visionary cinematographer Roger Deakins won an Oscar for his work in this movie. I mean why wouldn’t he as the visceral experience is so surreal you would find your heart racing as fast as a F1 car at moments. The seemless side by side running shots suddenly becoming a gods eye view and again a close up over the shoulder shots and so and so continuing on to create an art piece proves nothing but his brilliance.
The horrid and terrifying experiences of a full blown war always plays at a very grandiose scale incomprehensible by only story telling. But this movie captured that essence of the horror almost accurately.
To give a sense of Sam Mendes’s creativity and vision , he used Arri Alexa MINI LF which is a full sensor IMAX camera with a big sensor to shoot almost the whole movie except the aerial shots. He used narrow lenses to shoot in the caves and trenches to trigger claustrophobic effect among the viewers to get them close to the actual experience in such a situation. The Background score too is mutually triggering.
And lastly the VFX blend wildly with the real effects. The mojo of cinema is not only in the practical effects or only in the VFX. It is the perfect equilibrium between them is what draws the magic of cinema into the ballpark.
1917 is not the best war movie to be ever filmed. But it’s ambitious features make it one of a kind. Like it’s a mix of Alexandro Innaritu’s “Birdman” and “Shawshank redemption” horror notion alike which hits too close to home or real life.
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