An Impressive Visual Cinematographic Experience

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2020)

Sam Mendes has put together a compelling immersive film experience by a seemingly continuous moving camera record of two soldiers assigned the job of saving a battalion of 1,600 soldiers from a German entrapment and potential bloodbath. This is the second major film to provide its audience with a one streaming shot experience, the first being Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman ( 2014). There is a lot to commend here in terms of cinematography reminiscent of some of the best war and survival movies from the best directors in the business, including: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998), a rescue mission set in World War II Germany and War Horse (2011), an animal story set in cruel trench warfare of World War I; Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant (2015) a period survival, revenge piece the wilderness; Ron Howard's The Missing (2003) a rugged and stark Western rescue story; Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001) a contemporary military rescue effort in war-torn Somalia; Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) a horrifying, intense Vietnam War story; John Ford's, Henry Hathaway's, George Marshall's How The West Was Won (1962), an epic Western classic; John Sturges's The Great Escape (1963) an escape attempt from a notorious World War II prison camp; and even Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006), a story of survival in the perilous jungles of the declining Mayan empire. What is fascinating is the parallel to the breathtaking, pulsating science fiction thriller of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity (2013) a survival story in outer space. The camera work, the music, the storyline of survival and loss are intense in both these movies. What minor flaws or manipulative script devices that occur in 1917, can be somewhat forgiven: the coincidences of the terrible circumstances and friendly soldiers that may be nearby, a mouse and tripwire, an obvious overlooked advantage the protagonist had in regards to a potential duel with a silhouette who becomes an enemy soldier. Mendes comes close to transforming this movie into but somehow avoids turning it into an extended virtual amusement thrill ride experience. Whether or not this war movie will join the ranks of Black Hawk Down or Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves or Sam Mendes' own war movie Jar Head (2005), only time with time as the technology and cinematography continues to innovate to bring fresh and exciting visual and audio experiences to the audience.