I’ve seen a lot of war movies.
From 1986’s “Platoon,” and its harrowing breakdown of Vietnam, to 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket,” and its harrowing breakdown of man’s mental capacity to process combat, to 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan,” and its harrowing 27-minute breakdown of what bullets and bomb blasts can do to the human body, I thought I had pretty much seen everything that a film about war could deliver.
Well, color me wrong.
Sam Mendes’ “1917,” which details a race-against-the-clock mission by two young corporals to stop a British offensive during World War I, may not be the best war movie I’ve ever seen — hell, I’m not even sure whether “1917” is the best movie I saw from 2019’s packed slate of exceptional films — but it is the most staggeringly impressive war movie ever made, hands down.
For one, “1917” is filmed in such a way as to appear to be one continuous take where the camera never cuts away from its two fresh-faced young leads, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman, Game of Thrones) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay, Marrowbone).
In fact, I didn’t see a single obvious edit until a full 66 minutes of the film had unspooled.
Stop and let that sink in for a minute.
Mendes has made a war movie complete with explosions, tripwires, dogfights, hand to hand combat and lots of crawling over bloated, blistered, decimated corpses that never cuts away, that never takes time to recalibrate, that never flinches from depicting the absolute and unfathomable horror of combat in a way that I didn’t even think was possible.
And trust me, “1917” is as much of a horror movie as it is a war movie, a disaster film and a drama about the do-right bond between Blake and Schofield that propels their epic quest to save more than 1,600 British soldiers from certain death if they march into a carefully laid trap by German forces.
The fact that Mendes shot “1917” as one continuous take makes the film’s horror elements – the aforementioned soldiers’ bodies, the dozens of animal carcasses that mark the torn and scorched fields where past battles raged, the improbably large rats gnawing on both human and mammal remains – seem somehow more visceral and disturbing because you feel as if you’re right there in the moment with Blake and Schofield.
More so, Mendes’ bravado approach works wonders in helping you appreciate the enormity and scope of what he has accomplished. I for one couldn’t help but sit slack-jawed trying to figure out just how many miles of set that must have been constructed to properly showcase the network of foxholes, trenches and narrow bunkers that Blake and Schofield race through, the idyllic country estates they encounter and the ruined and smoldering villages they tiptoe toward, painfully aware of enemy fire that might suddenly rain down from every side.
When you consider everything that is happening around Blake and Schofield, from the scores of wounded and dazed soldiers wandering about to the planes buzzing overhead to the inevitable bomb blasts that rock the front lines, it’s amazing to consider how long it took, how many takes it took, to perfectly time each tiny detail so it all appeared organic and natural.
And that’s not even taking into account the two lead performances, coupled with a smattering of A-list cameos, including General Erinmore (Colin Firth), Captain Smith (Mark Strong) and Colonel MacKenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch), none of whom miss a beat or appear in the least distracted by this colossal machine of moving parts happening all around them.
It’s just so damn impressive.
“1917” is a marvel of a movie, a shining example of what cinema can do when pushed past its normal conventions and a testament to ambition and creativity that won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
This article appears in Jan 9-16, 2020.
