Co-written and directed by Sam Mendes best known for 1999’s American Beauty and the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall, 1917 is a remarkable technical and cinematic achievement of a movie that relies on resembling a long shot filmed in real time to brilliantly capture what it must have been like as a soldier in the trenches during World War I. The premise of the movie is fairly simple and straightforward but the complexity of using cinematography to tell a story in remarkable detail makes for a truly extraordinary cinematic experience. Two British soldiers Lance Corporal Tom Blake, played by Dean-Charles Chapman, and Lance Corporal William Schofield, played by George MacKay, are told by their commanding officer who is played by Colin Firth that they must cross enemy territory in order to give word to the 2nd Battalion in which Blake’s brother is part of to call off their attack against the German military. Set over a course of several hours beginning on April 6, 1917, the two young soldiers embark on a harrowing adventure in which they face very real dangers in the no man’s land, the abandoned German trenches, the open French countryside, and eventually the frontline. As a result of the camera work, it feels as if the audience is right there with the soldiers and are experiencing the same terrifying aspects of warfare. The camera moves its way to closely follow the two main characters and almost the entire movie feels like one long shot in which the camera never stops filming the action. In another effective choice, the filmmaker decides to use two relatively unknown and new actors as the main characters to show how war affects the relatively anonymous foot soldiers, while the leadership and such major stars as Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, and Richard Madden are given less screentime. Overall, I found it to be one of the more unique war movies as a result of its magnificent cinematography and creative use of the long shot technique and therefore will stand the test of time as a true cinematic masterpiece.
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