1917:The IMAX version.

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2020)

Entering 2020,I started to make plans over for what films I would travel out to see. Checking for what had been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscar's, I found out that for 1917,the entire film has been opened up to the IMAX format. This led to me going to the Vue IMAX in Manchester, (second biggest screen in Europe) for my first cinema viewing of the year.
View on the film:
Reuniting from their Skyfall (2012-also reviewed) mission with a idyllic sit in the French countryside before pulling back to reveal the mission that Blake and Schofield are about to accept, co-writer/(Krysty Wilson-Cairns) director Sam Mendes & cinematographer Roger Deakins track them both into a No Man's Land immerse atmosphere, where Mendes and Deakins cloud the "Men on a Mission" the duo must carry with magnificent, ultra-stylised long shadows casting hell across the war zone.
Also reuniting with composer Thomas Newman giving a excellent, shredded nerves score, Mendes and Deakins fully display the 5,200 feet of trenches dug out for the production in breath-taking long crane and tracking shots putting the viewer up-close to the dead bodies (outstanding special effects) laying at the side of the duo on their stealth walks across the wastelands.
Going on a mission with Mendes after editing Spectre (2015), Lee Smith stays perfectly in synch to Mendes, Deakins and Newman's charge to the front line, with razor-sharp invisible edits keeping the one continuous shot appearance on track, descending the duo deeper into this merciless war.
Inspired by his grandfather's book The Autobiography of Alfred H. Mendes 1897-1991.,the screenplay by Sam Mendes and Wilson-Cairns display a real precision in keeping exposition to a bare minimum, instead keeping the war grounded in earthy, clipped dialogue between Blake and Schofield becoming more open as they cross the battlefields.
Spending most of the film on their own, Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay give incredibly expressive, raw performances as Blake and Schofield, whose humble friendship walks on the paths of glory towards the war of 1917.