Sam Mendes’ brilliant, heartbreaking new blockbuster is bookended by two mirrored scenes; an exhausted British soldier leaning against a tree. Initially it appears he is simply grateful for a moment of peace and quiet amidst the chaos of war but come credits, you realise that these moments of quiet reflection aren’t as therapeutic as they seem. They’re almost cruel, coupled with the knowledge that each new day could bring about one’s swift and undignified end.
The sombre, gritty, futile reality of war – and particularly the First World War, one of the most poorly planned and executed conflicts in modern history – is captured brilliantly by this film. Tonal consistency is perhaps the biggest triumph in a film that is totally comprised of triumphs, whether they be of character, technical production or visual effects. There’s nothing glamorous on display in this film, and yet it is all crafted with a haunting beauty (see the pale, sickly colour palette) or a horrific grotesquerie (hundreds and hundreds of corpses, floating down the river and compacted with the very earth). The cinematography is fantastic from start to finish, with minimal, well-disguised cuts and choreography so perfect it seems nearly improvised (apparently several sequences were). Music is also incorporated in a seamless, yet non-diegetic manner, all in keeping with the unapologetic grimness of the whole thing.
Many of the film’s sequences are, to put it bluntly, breathtaking. Whether it be the unbearable tension of the walk across a ghastly, mud-caked quagmire in German No Man’s Land, an explosive aircraft duel or a blistering sprint through heavy bombardment, the film never lets you get comfortable – and considering the subject matter, this is all too right. As the First World War fades into the distant past that comes with one hundred years of separation, the experience runs the risk of going the same way, but thanks to films like this and Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old, we can create a lasting digital footprint. I suspect (and hope) that museums will make more use of this medium in future exhibitions. Through the use of hundreds of extras, Mendes has created a living, breathing image of the conflict and the men that lost their lives in it, that will live for the ages.
Speaking of those men, they are brought to life by exceptional, understated performances. George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman are fantastic as our central duo, both epitomising a different yet equally accurate view of the conflict i.e. patriotic enthusiasm and apathetic disenchantment. There are also some brilliantly brief roles for such big name talents as Colin Firth, Daniel Mays and Benedict Cumberbatch, but Mendes wisely sticks to brevity over overexposure which allows the two leads to shine more brightly. If there is one bum note in the film it’s the slightly unnecessary inclusion of a young Belgian woman and her adopted child, whose tender scene feels slightly out of place and a little cliched. That said, it did allow for Mendes to write perhaps the very first cinematic demonstration of ‘Chekov’s Milk’, so that’s something.
All said and done, it’s a film that I would highly recommend to anyone and everyone, whilst being very reluctant to see again. There would almost be something lost, I fear, in accompanying the two leads on their journey a second time where every tentative footfall they make is already played out in the back of your mind. At the end of the picture you never really get the sense of any accomplishment; sure, one attack was averted, but the next will surely come, and as the film tragically but brilliantly proves any single day can be your last day on Earth. There’s a beautiful futility to the whole tale – kind of like World War One itself, really – and any media that can shine a light on this now oft-overlooked conflict is a welcome and necessary one.
10/10 – Poignant. Breathtaking. Heartbreaking. Essential. 1917 is as close to perfection as it gets even as it probes the imperfections of mankind.
Ellis Net 
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