As if you’re there
In 1917, the brilliant cinematography is its own character
War is definitely hell, but Sam Mendes and his new feature film 1917 are having a heavenly wonderful time rising to the top at the moment. This latest tale on World War I won best picture at the Golden Globes and has become one of the front-runners for Oscar season next month. Despite its somewhat simple plot, the success of the film definitely wasn’t a fluke, and can’t be ignored.
1917 was written and directed by Mendes and it stars George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman as two young British soldiers — Lance Corporals William Schofield and Tom Blake. While at the height of World War I, both soldiers are given a dangerous race-against-time mission whereby they must cross enemy lines and go deep into the territory to deliver an urgent message that will result in the saving of 1,600 British soldiers, with Blake’s own big brother being one of them. Of course, the plot isn’t as simple as it sounds, almost like Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The
Rings, wherein Frodo and Sam have to travel far into the enemy lines and drop the ring into a volcano: simple plot, yet still very epic.
1917 is the kind of film that focuses more on cinematography experimenting rather than telling a complex story. Whether you’ll end up liking the story of this film or not, you can’t deny the fact that it is very beautifully shot and a tremendous technical achievement. It feels very tangible and authentic, whether in costume design, production design, set design — everything about this film is just on-point and looks really period-accurate. The film is also designed to look like one shot for the entire film with a series of continuous shots put together to give the impression of a single continuous image — a kind of technique we’ve seen before from Hitchcock’s Rope and Iñárritu’s Birdman.
The obvious evidence can be found in the first 10 minutes, where there’s a long stretch in which the camera follows the two leads who are crawling and swimming through a sea of mud and dead bodies to get to the other side. It’s a long shot with no dialogue or narration, yet it’s so intense you can hear a pin drop. And as we follow along, it feels very intense and nerve-racking as we get to witness closely what Schofield and Blake are up to, or when they try to get past something second-by-second. This is what makes the film so compelling — because it makes you feel like everything could always go wrong for them, you never feel like they’re safe.
You will be floored at how seamless and smooth the editing and cinematography are. Thanks to Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, this long continuous shot frequently dollies, following the characters backside and moving around to follow them from the front, so as to make you feel like you’re walking in the battlefield with them.
For years, the cinema world has been trying to give us a true immersive cinematic experience, which we have seen, from those 3D movies to the 4DX format with the simulation shaking chairs, not to mention those found-footage movies with their false-documentary illusion. But none of that can compare to what 1917 has accomplished here.
And while everybody will surely be praising mostly the technical stuff about this film, as they should, it would not have worked, without these two talented actors. George MacKay, in particular, shows signs of greatness in his performance and makes us wanting to see more of him.
One of the drawbacks is that 1917 felt, in a way, more like an adventure movie than a war movie. Or even a video game than an actual movie. Almost like a third-person video game you had no control over as your perspective is only following behind someone who’s walking. Also, the film didn’t care too much about building character. It just had people in the middle of a terrible situation. They’ve done very little to give more information or character development to these two people. So when bad things happen to them, you don’t quite care as much as you could.
Nevertheless, it’s still a really good movie and very impressive to watch. 1917 successfully brings World War I to life in a way you’ve never seen before on-screen.