1917

“Time is the enemy.”

Filmology Rating: 3.5 out of 4

1917, as many people know by now, is the Sam Mendes, Roger Deakins "one-shot" World War I film that has been getting loads of press for its awards talk and technical achievements. 

Two men must cross through enemy lines and difficult terrain to deliver an order that is to call off an attack that their superiors believe is a trap.

The "one-shot" that this film has been getting loads of attention for should really have sixteen quotations around it because it's really a film where every ten minutes or so there is a hidden cut or a very obvious one in particular that people just choose not to discuss for some reason.  Regardless, the film's biggest technical achievement is stringing together these long takes to look like one continuous take and it enhances the cinematic experience that Mendes wants to place the audience into. 

Roger Deakins is regarded as the greatest living cinematographer today and he really brings something special to this film.  The idea is that you're experiencing what the two leads see as if you were a third member of their party and that lends itself to genuinely tense film because it feels as if anything will happen at any moment.

Dean-Charles Chapman and George Mackay are outstanding in this film. They don't feel like artificial movie characters in a war film, but rather actual people you follow along in this dangerous voyage. And they are constantly being beaten down and injured. These are characters where neither feel safe from violence and that anything can happen to either.

The only issue with the film is a lack of emotional attachment I had with the characters in the narrative. Yes, it is a war film, but you can make a great war film with good characters and heart. Just look at 'Saving Private Ryan.' It's almost the same argument people being to horror films in that "you don't have to care for the characters because it's a horror film." So, as a drama, '1917' was lacking. 

This film is shot stunningly by Roger Deakins. Many sequences in this film are eye-widening as to how gorgeous the shots are. It's a chair-gripping technical masterpiece with an outstanding score, but just falls short in its dramatic ambitions.

Rating: See It

-Nolan