In the "it's alright" trenches

Rating: 7/10 (10 January 2020)

Sam Mendes in 1917 gives us his variation on the old adage, "if you think you're going through hell, keep going," and for all of the given technical prowess - and a 70 year old Roger Deakins showing with a big grin that he's still got one of the most massive cinematography you-know-whats in the industry - I didn't feel much while watching this, except the occasional "oof" or "ugh" (usually when seeing some of the first dead bodies and rats). It's a conceptual piece that means to be a major statement on the horrors of war, and it only reminds me that the films about war that have stayed with me more than any are the ones that provide visceral and complicated characters FIRST, craft wizardry SECOND (or at least concurrently).
I thought at some point I might compare it to how a war-like video game works (I dont have a lot of experience playing these sorts of first-person shooters, Im just going by assumption), and to Mendes's credit he tries to slow things down here and there so it isnt all thrill-a-minute action and spectacle. But it does carry that sense of the mission these two are on and the sort of "stuff" that happens is more interesting than getting to know them (and when we briefly do, it's unremarkable, maybe a sign of why Mendes doesn't usually write his own films).
It's a somewhat precarious position to be in as one in the audience, since objectively I know what everyone on the crew did to make this come off, from the art direction to the props to how goddamn realistically-based the camera is (or I should say like 80% of the time), yet by the end it means to lay an emotional punch to the gullet, and I just didn't connect.
Maybe some will, or maybe some will be even more bothered by what is clearly, as far as elevator pitches go, an attempt to one-up Kubrick with Paths of Glory (I van almost hear Mendes in his head as he shoots this going, "hah, take that and your trench tracking shots!") via the near-one take approach of Rope. But, again, those films had scripts that were engaging completely on the scale of what horrors human beings do to one another on an individual scale, with the system as a cudgel, not to mention enormously moving performances (same with another film that did this far better, Birdnlman, for its theatricality). This is kind of a... Forced-Poetic idea of a tragic story, impeccably made but hollow at its heart.
For all the impressive filmmaking brio on display, I unfortunately have a sinking feeling this may win best director and best picture at the Oscars not for exactly being a "best" but for being the "most" film (or trying to be). And as for it being an anxiety-filled experience... Folks, c'mon, Uncut Gems is in a theater right next door to this one at your local cineplex .