A Thin Story Told Perfectly

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2020)

"1917" is more an experience than it is a movie; it's as if you're an invisible soldier right there on the battlefield, waking up alongside Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman, "The King") and Schoefield (George MacKay, "Marrowbone"), before you're tasked to carry out the mission with them. I say this film is an experience more than a film because it feels like a virtual WWI experience: you follow these soldiers from the moment they get their mission to the moment their mission comes to an end (however that may be), quite literally never breaking away from them.
The film is made to look as if it's two long unbroken shots, and yes, there are hidden cuts throughout the film, and some of them are more obvious than others, but the length of the shots is probably the main draw of this film. It makes it incredibly unique as far as the intensive technical aspects that needed to be coordinated for every shot, but it also gives the film a whole new perspective that doesn't focus so much on the action of war, but instead on the desolation it causes to the surrounding countryside (sort of like Elem Klimov's "Come and See" or Tarkovsky's "Ivan's Childhood"). While the story "1917" might be incredibly simple, it absolutely makes up for it with it's amazing direction, production design, cinematography, and subtle character development. "1917" is far from my favorite film of the year (2019 was a great year for movies), but it's still a 5/5 Star film in terms of sheer ambition and exe!