1917 (2019)
By The Gorilla
This review contains spoilers
Fear runs in the streets. The city is deserted. I saw a man staring at a small Chinese girl for a second, then turning and running away like the devil was after him. He was screaming: “Coronavirus!”
The young girl screamed back: “Dad?”
Everyone is afraid, but not me though. This afternoon I met with Corona for a coffee and I gave her a good slap with the back of my hand. I told her that if she wanted a piece of me she had to call her friends AIDS and Chlamydia and gang up on me, because alone, she had no chance. I told her to be ready, because next time it was going to be “on sight.”
She told me to relax, while she was massaging her jaw: “Go watch a movie, you’re too tense.”
“I don’t take orders from you!” I raised my hand but she blocked me: “OK, OK, but check out 1917, it’s really good. It’s an experience.”
The movie won so many BAFTAS I thought I might as well give it a try. And so I did.
1917 (2019) by Sam Mendes centers on Lance Corporals Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will Schofield (George MacKay). At the dusk of WWI, on 6 April 1917, they are given the order from General Colin Firth to go through no man’s land, deep into enemy lines, and deliver a message to Colonel Benedict Cumberbatch. He must stop the attack on zee Germans because he is walking into a trap. His battalion of 1,600 men also includes Blake’s brother (I think he was in Games of Thrones), so now we know this is personal. Blake and Schofield depart immediately and along the way they meet Moriarty, the guy from Kingsman coming in strong, and a bunch of will-be Nazis.
That’s it. That’s the story. Two guys have to go from A to B. The End.
And that’s perfect, innit mate?
The plot is minimalist, but beautifully structured. It is simple without being empty. It moves the audience along, and it is constantly in motion. Blake and Schofield are not only running against time, they are changing. I saw them mature and mutate. I saw them fall and get up again. Even though the whole story takes place in a few hours, by the end I had witnessed two lives changing completely.
In 1917, the camera work, lighting, costumes, set design, and editing (because you need that to have the shots seamlessly attached together) are all proof of a group of filmmakers at the top of their forms. But if I have to single out anyone for praise, I have to go with “ma bois”—the Cinematography, Sound, and Art Department—as the most striking aspects of the whole production.
Every technical aspect works in synchrony, so listen to the Gorilla here, go watch it in cinema if you still can. It is an immersive experience, and for that you need good sound, a huge screen, and a dark room.
The film unfolds in one continuous take (though there is a cut in the middle), but contrary to Birdman (2015), here it actually makes sense. The single take drew me in, entrapped me into the life of the two soldiers. With nowhere to run, I had to stay with them for their whole journey. The take works, and is meaningful, because they are traveling towards one specific destination. On the other hand, the auditory landscape felt real, and I jumped and roared every time there was a gunshot. Every beautiful set piece is distinctive in its colors, but well-linked together and represents a new chapter in Blake’s and Schofield’s expedition. The movie doesn’t work with its technical achievements, but because of them.
Most people have referred to watching 1917 as an experience—much as they had done with Dunkirk (2017). Most people (Corona included) are probably right. But there is a plot, albeit minimalist, and it works. That’s the important thing! If then someone will seek deeper themes and answers to what they were shown on screen, they will seek them by themselves. And I believe the simple story helps with that, although, those discoveries will probably reflect much more the viewer’s mind than the filmmakers’ intention.
As it is, 1917 stands as a grand accomplishment in the war movie genre, effectively telling a modest story with outstanding technical aspects.
I went back home with my fur painted black, green, and yellow, like those camouflage uniforms. I ate a banana and had a very gorilla sleep.
The Gorilla watches movies, The Gorilla thinks, The Gorilla does reviews. He is very opinionated, which sometimes drives his girlfriend, The Panda, crazy. He also likes alcoholic bananas, back scratches, and long naps in the sun.
