What is 1917 for a Russian person? These are two revolutions and the true beginning of a new century - cruel, tragic and disastrous. But already exactly the one that we consider our history. This is the time with which we associate ourselves in one way or another: for some, the great-grandfather is the commissar, for someone the dispossessed peasant. Someone died in the war, someone did not live to see the war, they shot him.

But this is a crystalline figure: 1917 is a tangible reference point.

For some reason, this doesn’t make us any closer to the world, but, on the contrary, somewhat alienates us from the world. Because for the world, 1917 is first of all the height of the First World War, a captured catastrophe of a planetary scale.

And before that there was a lot of everything with the incomprehensible mind: the Inquisition, the Conquistadors, plague epidemics, revolutions and restorations with their own scaffolds. But it was the First World War that became the event that you can look at; a lot of genuine documentary evidence remains about it, right down to color newsreels.

And the First World War, as a revolution for us, was the beginning of a new century - it began with the story that goes on and on, the story that the world lives on.

Poisonous gases as weapons of mass destruction, tanks as images of deadly monsters, millions of victims, which in the 20th century will be repeated from time to time around the world, hunger and epidemics ... In general, the history of mankind could be ended, but it turned out to be scary that in the modern sense, it has just begun.

Russia, of course, was one of the main participants in the First World War, but it so happened that it was that war that became only one of the reasons why the new Russia began.

That war seemed to have opened a new level of Hegelian catastrophic development - here they are, new cataclysms that move humanity forward. And mankind rushed forward headlong.

There, in 1914-1918, lay the foundations of fascism, the great depressions, the redivision of the world and the subsequent apocalyptic somersaults of reality.

It happens that you come to a small German town, and there is a monument, as on a mass grave, and a bas-relief in the form of a recognizable German helmet. How? Are the soldiers who died in World War II? Take a closer look - no, it’s perished on the First.

Red poppy on the territory of Great Britain and the countries of the Commonwealth, as well as throughout Europe - is a recognizable symbol, much like our St. George ribbon.

Only there is it a symbol of the memory of the victims of the First World War, and not a symbol of victory in the Second. Put it on the lapel on November 11 since 1919.

In other words, the First World War is the main trauma in Europe.

Therefore, a Hollywood film about World War I, shot by British director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Change, Skyfall Coordinates), is something that we might think is just another movie about a war that doesn't feel how completely ours, but in the world this film is now considered the main contender for the Oscar. This film cannot be avoided, it cannot be overlooked.

The two junior corporal of the British army must cross the front line in France, dodge the German units and give the order to cancel the attack to the British battalion. If the message does not arrive on time, the British with their attack will fall into the ingenious German trap and die - all fifteen hundred battalion fighters.

Heroes together go through all the horrors of war: shelling, aerial combat, dead rotting horses and soldiers hanging on a barbed wire, abandoned houses, ruined cathedrals and even flowering cherries, heartlessly destroyed by German troops ...

It is assumed that the film was shot in a single plan without mounting glues. At least this picture should produce such an impression. The creators said that there are gluings, but this does not cancel the effect. Such a technique has already been implemented in the Oscar-winning film “Birdman” by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and then in the episode of the film “Best Day” by Zhora Kryzhovnikova, where the heroine, looking at the camera and riding a fire truck, sings the song I Will Survive.

It should be noted that in the film "1917" this technique looks more appropriate and organic, here it is at least meaningful and necessary in order to demonstrate that war is horror without end and rest. And the viewer is sitting, chained to the screen, unable to catch his breath, because the hero does not have such an opportunity: he is on his feet for 24 hours without sleep and food, and in front of him new unbearable trials await him - he will sink and burn, lose his friend and all hope .

In addition to the main technique - one-sided shooting, this film is no different from any other pictures about the war. And no matter what kind of war. Simple and direct dialogues, pumped up pathos, blood, explosions, a pinch of trench truth, munching dirt under the legs in the windings. There’s even a very stereotypical commander who takes a sip of something strong from a flask and sprinkles heroes from a flask, blessing them on a completely hopeless and deadly campaign. And in the end, a cartoonish arrogant English colonel, performed by Benedict Cumberbatch, appears, who only needs a monocle.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent directorial work, which, apparently, should be included not only in cinematography textbooks, but also in the school curriculum. The cumulative effect of the canonical stereotypes characteristic of war movies is more important than snobbish frame-by-frame analysis - do we not understand the military tragedy of every soldier? Can we not empathize with him? Can we not believe in the role of the little "captain Tushin" in the big and merciless slaughter?

We can have different tragedies, different historical disasters.

But there can be one pain.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.