"1917" Nominated for Ten Oscar; Are They Deserved?

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2020)

It is April 1917. The 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment is poised to attack the Germans near the Hindenburg Line in northern France. General Erinmore has learned that the 2nd Battalion is walking into an ambush. He sends two British soldiers to warn the Devonshire Regiment not to go forward with the attack that would decimate the more than 1,600 men of the Devonshire Regiment. They have less than 24 hours to find the regiment and deliver orders to Colonel MacKenzie to stand-down.
The film is produced by Sam Mendes whose grandfather, Alfred Mendes served in World War I. The film is based on a narrative by the elder Mr. Mendes about two young British soldiers that crossed enemy lines to save a regiment that is walking into an ambush. The film stars; George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The cinematographer is Roger Deakins who is known for creating long continuous shots in one take. He is a master of using zoom, pan, and tilt technics with a steady-cam that follows a character through numerous scenes in one single shot.
The film opens with Lance Corporals Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will Schofield (George MacKay) napping on a grassy hill when they are summoned to report to General Erinmore (Colin Firth). If you remember from history, World War I was called the "trench war" because both the British and German soldiers dug deep elaborate trenches on the battlefield. This would allow soldiers to move around freely while protecting them from small arms fire, artillery shells, and mustard gas. The land between the two opposing armies or fronts was referred to as "No Man's Land". Anyone crossing into this zone was considered, dead. A barbed-wire ran parallel to the trenches was usually littered by dead bodies both human and animal.
The two soldiers set out running through a labyrinth of trenches, then crossing "No Man's Land" into the German front making their way through the German trenches and finally behind enemy lines. Along the way, they run into trouble but they manage to keep one another motivated with one goal in mind; to save the men of the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment as well as Corporal Blake's brother, Lieutenant Joseph Blake (Richard Madden).
The film is a cinematic masterpiece. Sam Medes managed to take the audience into the trenches. We were made to feel the corporals' cold and wet as they crawled in and out of bomb craters. As well as the smell of death that surrounded these two brave men. We experienced the fear of Corporal Schofield as he ran from German snipers and other soldiers as he hid in the bombed-out village of Ã‰coust-Saint-Mein. There Corporal Schofield comes across Lauri (Claire Duburcq) a French woman and a baby hiding in a bombed-out building. As dawn came, the corporal had only hours to find the 2nd Battalion and when it was time to leave it was heartbreaking to watch him walk away from Lauri and the baby as he had to move on to complete the mission.
We cheered Corporal Schofield on as he sprints through the battlefield as soldiers from the 2nd Battalion poured on to the field amidst the artillery shells raining down on the troops. The corporal finally makes his way through the trench to Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) to deliver the orders from General Erinmore. The battalion is ordered to stand-down and the corporal is left with one more mission to complete. He finds Corporal Blake's older brother, Lt. Joseph Blake, to give him the sad news about his younger brother, who was killed by a German pilot they saved from a burning plane. As the two stand there, we feel the pain that both of these men shared.
"1917" received 10 nominations including Best Picture and Best Director and of course Best Cinema-photography. This is a definite must-see if not for its historical value, but for its photography and storytelling from the point-of-view of someone that was there slogging through the mud in the miles of trenches.