I saw 1917 in the morning in an almost empty movie theater at the outdoor gallery The Grove in Los Angeles without expectations. Steven Spielberg's peculiar War Horse (2011) - another World War II movie released during the Golden Globes and the Oscars season - had left a bitter taste in his mouth.
But 1917 made me forget time and space. Forced me into a cash panic state. Skakis, walked out onto the shopping street in a fog and caught his breath.
The film is about two young British soldiers on the western front who are assigned a suicide mission. General Erinmore, played by an incredible Colin Firth, explains with utmost seriousness what is at stake: the Germans have cut all telegraph lines and made a tactical retreat. Two British battalions of 1,600 men run the risk of falling into a deadly trap. Corporals Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean Carles-Chapman) have to deliver a warning.
As the route lay on the salmon, Blake's brother is found among the unknowing soldiers. In other words, the duo must quickly cross no man's land and a large portion of hostile territory before it is too late. A huge aspect of the thrill lies in the fact that Sam Mendes managed to simulate the entire film as a single long shot in real time.
It's always the simplest ideas that work best. Sure, it certainly wasn't easy for director Sam Mendes to recreate his grandfather's horrific memories from the trenches of the First World War in this way. However, $ 90 million and his genius have succeeded. A film that comes close to a contemporary example is Norwegian Erik Poppes Utöya, July 22, but 1917 is ultimately a less realistic and in every way more grand cinema experience. The dust is the dustiest, the mud the mud, and the rats the hungry.
Although it is a heroic story, Mendes does not want to be sentimental, or romanticize the war in any other way than in intimate brotherhood. Schofield says on one occasion he exchanged an honorary medal for a bottle of wine, according to the philosophy "it's just a piece of metal".
I've seen many war movies, and the best ones (Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Dunkirk, Jarhead to name a few) have something unique to say about the hell of the war. The question is whether anyone caught the terror while waiting for the moment of chaos in as physically present as 1917.
Already in the pleasant introduction. Schofield and Blake sneak through craters in no man's land and Schofield cuts himself on barbed wire and happens to dip his hand with the open wound in his chest on a broken body.
Telling more would reveal too much, but seeing the movie a second time is almost as nerve-wracking as the first, because I know what trauma is waiting.