What happens when a movie is so technically impressive that it almost upstages the incredibly powerful story that it tells? In some ways, that’s the dilemma of 1917.
A visually fascinating film which shows its story in what appears to be a single long shot. The director, Sam Mendes, is surrounded by the best in the business at what they do, from sound and photography to art direction and lighting. It shows in great detail and though it can be distracting at times, it also uses some of those same effects to illustrate the horrors of war. It’s almost as if you can smell the stench of the dead and the cold and mud of the terrain as they cross the battlefield to complete what seems like an impossible task. To see the brutality of war is awful enough but to feel that it never stops makes it all the more powerful. That’s where the single-shot technique really reinforces the narrative.
I highly recommend the movie and suggest to see it on the biggest screen you can find to get the entire effect of being immersed in the movie. A small quibble is that although we are aware of the urgency of the mission, I sometimes wasn’t fully aware of where the soldiers delivering the message were in the timeline. Were they ahead of schedule or potentially going to be too late? That said, the tension of all the obstacles that they face as they press on and on when many might give up shows the dedication that so many of our service men and women face every day and give of themselves for our freedoms.
What happens when a movie is so technically impressive that it almost upstages the incredibly powerful story that it tells? In some ways, that’s the dilemma of 1917.
A visually fascinating film which shows its story in what appears to be a single long shot. The director, Sam Mendes, is surrounded by the best in the business at what they do, from sound and photography to art direction and lighting. It shows in great detail and though it can be distracting at times, it also uses some of those same effects to illustrate the horrors of war. It’s almost as if you can smell the stench of the dead and the cold and mud of the terrain as they cross the battlefield to complete what seems like an impossible task. To see the brutality of war is awful enough but to feel that it never stops makes it all the more powerful. That’s where the single-shot technique really reinforces the narrative.
I highly recommend the movie and suggest to see it on the biggest screen you can find to get the entire effect of being immersed in the movie. A small quibble is that although we are aware of the urgency of the mission, I sometimes wasn’t fully aware of where the soldiers delivering the message were in the timeline. Were they ahead of schedule or potentially going to be too late? That said, the tension of all the obstacles that they face as they press on and on when many might give up shows the dedication that so many of our service men and women face every day and give of themselves for our freedoms.