Opposite effects

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2020)

1917 is obviously a masterpiece of technique. But the awesome single takes become exhausting -- how long can this wend and wind until it breaks? At least two ruptures give relief and punctuation, namely, the trip-wire explosion in the underground hospital and the blackout after being shot by the German sniper (others slip in unnoticed like enormously suspended continuity cuts, made invisible by a greater momentum of the scene). But "relief" points to a bizarre irony at work throughout this ambitious film. Those two moments of intensity create an opposite effect -- unrelenting movement is brought to rest, so the height of climax turns into, not anti-climax, but even more opposite -- into hiatus.
Those fluid single takes have a broader opposite effect. World War I killed and maimed so many precisely because it was not fluid. Trench warfare was an unprecedented and lethal stalemate. Soldiers were trapped in trenches as surely as bodies on barbed wire. Giving two soldiers (and then one) two hours of movement contradicts the core experience.
1917 creates bizarre ironic effects. Oddly, this epic about the horrors of war is an epic anesthetic. The corpses and ruins, even when they crescendo in climax scenes, combine to normalize rather than shock. After such a steady desensitization, the final field hospital sequence had the impact of a dustbin full of mannequins. This opposite effect is heightened by the preceding first wave attack. The field is conversely, perversely green, a relief for the eyes after all the mud and gore. The contrast is, of course, intended, but the freshness undercuts the trauma.
Some of the viewing experience is superb, especially the tight point-of-view as the two soldiers climb the berm into No Man's Land. Also successful is a quick, efficient plant that gives an edge to the delivery of the letter -- a single comment that some commanders will ignore orders for the glory of a fight. That warning suspends the outcome until the very moment the colonel speaks. But these successes rub shoulders with odd misfires. The river sequence seems bizarre and make-believe (does Belgium have rapids and a waterfall? Is this the time to find out? Is this Revenant envy?). The flares in the nighttime in the ruined city create a circle of hell, but more for effect than credibility (as are the roaring flames of a building that would already be a shell with nothing left to burn). And milk in a pail in a ruined farm? This odd discovery prepares for the mother and baby later, who are themselves implausible but made-believe for emotional contrast. Contrast again overrides reason when the two soldiers chat pleasantly while approaching the ruined farm where an opposite tone will soon wreak its havoc. The cut hand gives us a truly grotesque, original moment when it penetrates a corpse, but the hand conveniently becomes uncut and immaterial when the narrative is finished with it. Notice too that the "attack at dawn" is nowhere near dawn; more important than coherence is a craving for clear and colorful cinematography. The daylight of the ending contradicts the fear of daylight at the start, as if the story is not listening to itself. None of these objections matter if you already are immersed in the film, but once you step outside the flow of the single takes, the missteps you see add up and matter.
And what is the driving principle? Can dedication to a single goal make all this havoc turn from senselessness to sense? By the end, the main character has no helmet, no gun, no protection, stripped down to his will. We are asked to feel satisfied by his success at reaching the commander at the end of the dream. Granted, the film delivers an anti-war cynicism -- but it rests on a single throwaway line at the end. When the colonel orders the troops to "stand down," he adds that another order will arrive next week saying to attack at dawn. Close to 1,600 soldiers have been saved -- to be sacrificed a bit later. The betrayal of humanity (writ large by World War I itself) is there, but it takes a sidekick role compared to the closure of the mission.