Although partly a technical showcase rather than a story, it's still a terrific Great War movie

Rating: 8/10 (23 January 2020)

Written by Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and directed by Mendes, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that 1917 has been done in such a way as to give the impression that it all takes place in two single shots (the marketing material says one shot, but it's two - there's a cut-to-black/time-jump about midway through where no attempt is made to hide the transition). In reality, of course, there are a lot more than two shots (the longest single shot was just over 8 minutes), but the edits have been digitally 'hidden', much like Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) or Utøya 22. juli (2018). Working with cinematographer Roger Deakins (who'll win his second Oscar for the film), Mendes wanted it to be the most immersive war movie ever put on screen. And although I have some issues with it, I think he's made an exceptional film, one in which form and content are unusually tightly matched, with the style extremely effective at delivering the story in a thematically justified manner.
April 6, 1917; the Western Front. Two British Lance Corporals, Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are summoned to a meeting with General Erinmore (Colin Firth). Recently, German forces have fallen back, and Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) of the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment believes that if he attacks now, he can turn the tide of the war. However, he's unaware that the retreat is tactical - the Germans have fallen back to the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line and are lying in wait. With communication lines cut, Schofield and Blake are assigned to physically carry an order from Erinmore to Mackenzie calling off the following morning's attack. If they fail, 1,600 soldiers will be slaughtered.
So, the film's big selling point is its aesthetic design. The use of the single-shot format is such a noticeable type of form that whenever it's used, it automatically places pressure on the content, which must justify why the film is shot this way. If the content can't do that, the form becomes gimmicky. Think of, for example, Rope (1948), which was edited to look like one shot, or Victoria (2015), which was legitimately one shot. Very little in either film justifies the stylistic design. Compare this with genuine one-shot films such as Timecode (2000) or Russkiy kovcheg (2002), and edited one-shot films such as La casa muda (2010) or the aforementioned Utøya 22. Juli, all of which tie form to content in such a way that they become indistinguishable. And I think Mendes achieves like synergy.
Is the one-shot effect distracting? At first, yes, it is a little, especially if you're playing the game of trying to spot where editor Lee Smith has hidden the transitions. But after sussing two edits in the first twenty minutes, I stopped looking, because I realised I was just pulling myself out of the film unnecessarily. In essence, once you go with the aesthetic on its own terms, you forget about trying to spot the edits, instead letting the cinematography do exactly what it's supposed to do - immerse you.
Generally speaking, the majority of the film is shot in one of two ways - either the camera is behind Schofield and Blake, following their path, or it's in front of them, facing back towards them as they 'follow' its path. There are some minor deviations from this, but the film never leaves their presence. And because the two men are almost perpetually in motion, it means that the camera is almost perpetually in motion - if they're walking along a trench, we're walking along a trench; if they're moving slowly through a bombed-out town, we're moving slowly through a bombed-out town. Almost everything the camera does is because one or both of the protagonists are doing the same thing, further emphasising the correlation between form and content.
The opening scene serves as a superb introduction to the technique. The film starts with a shot of a daffodil field, before pulling back and revealing Schofield and Blake taking a break. They rouse themselves and begin walking, first past more resting soldiers, then the mess, then down a ramp into the trenches. Geographically, it's a short walk, but thematically, it covers considerable ground, and perfectly encapsulates one of the main thematic reasons behind the single-shot - to accurately convey the importance of geospatial relations. We see the tactile transition from Edenic to hellish because we're moving in real-time through the milieu; we see the boundary between peace and war because the characters walk along that boundary. You shoot this sequence conventionally, and you undercut that.
Along slightly more conventional lines, one also has to commend the work of production designer Dennis Gassner. Every location is visually unique - from a German bunker to an abandoned farmhouse to the bombed-out remnants of Écoust-Saint-Mein. His design of No Man's Land is especially laudable. When the men first crawl venture out, they immediately encounter a rotting fly-covered horse carcass. Gradually, however, the battlefield becomes more mechanised, until they eventually pass through a German artillery position, with their journey charting the progression of the conflict itself, which started on horses and ended up in tanks.
Also in a slightly more conventional sense, one has to mention Deakins's work during the nighttime scenes in Écoust-Saint-Mein. The entire village has been reduced to nothing but the shells of buildings, and as we pass through the town, the only source of light is from the flares arching through the sky, which create very hard shadows in constant motion. The whole thing is almost otherworldly, and as the garish light traverses the sky, it's as if the ground itself is in motion, almost liquid-like. It might be a little too aesthetically beautiful for a film aiming for such gritty realism, but for aspiring cinematographers, you won't find a better study in how to compose a sequence using light and shadow.
Thematically, by its very nature, 1917 is far more focused on the micro than the macro - you might learn something about life on the front, but you'll learn nothing about the politics behind the conflict. Partly because of this, it avoids, for the most part, the overwrought patriotism and cartoonish jingoism that make films like Saving Private Ryan (1998) so obnoxious. Indeed, the protagonists' nationality is largely anonymous, which is not something you can usually say of a war film. On the other hand, you shouldn't expect too much psychological insight. The Thin Red Line (1998) (for my money, the greatest war film ever made) it most definitely isn't. Having said that, however, I would value its simple individualised insights above something like the empty temporal trickery of Dunkirk (2017).
In terms of other problems, the story is unquestionably paper-thin, but that's pretty much by design. One criticism I did have, however, is how well-groomed Scholfield and Blake constantly are, each with a perfect set of teeth. One only need watch They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) to see how unrealistic this is. Indeed, the duo look like they've just stepped out of the makeup trailer most of the time, and it's glaring enough on a couple of occasions to pull you out of things.
All things considered though, I thoroughly enjoyed 1917. I thought the single-shot strategy worked exceptionally well, and even if the film is weak from a character/storyline/theme perspective, it didn't really matter when the form and content are this well matched. This could have become an empty technical exercise predicated on nothing, but Mendes hasn't allowed that to happen. The Great War was hell on Earth. 1917 doesn't make us feel what that hell was like. Because no film, no art form, can do that. But it's a very fine approximation.