MANILA, PHILIPPINES – For most of us, the concept of a “world war” is almost unfathomable. Since World War I ended in 1918 and World War II ended in 1945, just the idea of countries joining forces to battle one another behind powerful armies on each side is something we only see in history books. Yet almost a century ago, young men were being drafted to join the war effort and fight for their nations even if they didn’t want to. That is the scenario we are given in Director Sam Mendes’ 1917.
In April 1917, two British soldiers, Lance Corporal Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are in the north of France and given a mission by General Erinmore (Colin Firth). Despite what the British forces believe, the Germans are not pulling back from a sector on the Western Front and are, in fact, setting a trap to lure the British in before overwhelming them. The boys are tasked with hand-delivering a message to the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in hopes of saving the 1,600 soldiers who might get caught in the ambush, including Tom’s brother, Lieutenant Joseph Blake.
Crossing through no man’s land, Schofield and Blake see the abandoned German trenches and a rat triggers one of the tripwires, nearly killing Schofield. Arriving at an empty farmhouse, they witness an aerial dogfight as one pilot’s plane lands close to them. This pilot’s subsequent action changes the relationship of the boys, leaving the mission perilously close to not being completed and thus exposing those soldiers to a trap waiting to be sprung by the Germans.
Mendes and Scottish writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns wrote the screenplay for 1917 based on a story that Mendes’ grandfather, Alfred Mendes, told him about World War I. With a simple plot of trying to get a message across enemy lines to save hundreds of lives from being gunned down, any conversation about 1917 will not be complete without the cinematography of the great Roger Deakins. Finally winning his first Academy Award after 13 previous nominations for last year’s Blade Runner 2049, Mendes and Deakins pull off what seems like one long continuous take, leaving the audience wondering how they accomplished it and where the actual cuts took place.
Beyond the “trick” however, the film is stunning as one would come to expect from a film with Deakins on board. The brutality of war, with all the mud, blood, and gore it entails, is not sugarcoated in 1917 as Schofield and Blake make their way through the trenches and across open fields. When the scene shifts to the farm and later on, in France itself, the filmmakers still manage to capture the beauty of the French countryside despite the war wiping out significant chunks of the population. Whereas some critics reportedly got caught up in the one long take and trying to decipher where the edits were, it actually makes the viewing experience more immersive even as the camera still manages to shift focus from one character to the next.
MacKay is a relative unknown, making it easy to place the audience’s hopes on him without the burden of a long or extensive filmography. And though Chapman played Tommen Baratheon in the final seasons of Game of Thrones, he looks nothing like Cersei’s son here, making Blake’s partnership and friendship with Schofield more believable as one between equals who have been drafted into a war they wanted no part of. Bigger named actors like Firth, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, and Benedict Cumberbatch are given smaller roles despite them playing more higher-ranking officials, a nice contrast to the two leads being played by the relative neophytes.
It’s only been a few years since Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic, Dunkirk, was released, and it’s true that the second World War or even the Vietnam War and the Gulf War have had their stories adapted or turned into movies more often over the decades. In fact, aside from 2017’s Wonder Woman, there has hardly been any representation of that particular war in a feature. Yet now, over a century after that conflict finally ended, this story of courage, war, innocence lost, perseverance, and unflinching resolve has seen the light of day.
We often say that good war movies expose the horrible side of armed conflict, not the glamor we might associate with winning sides and their crisp uniforms, and 1917 is definitely the former. There is no attempt to glamorize the war or make the prospect of volunteering to serve seem like a heroic deed. Instead, 1917 captures the yearning of these young men to return to the homelands that they left behind and faced with the prospect of looming death, it become all the more tragic when many of them become victims of war.
Rated PG by the MTRCB, 1917 opens in Philippine cinemas on February 5, 2020.
About the Author:
Jason Inocencio was once the Digital Editor of adobo magazine who still loves seeing great campaigns from all over the world. He proudly shows off his love for all kinds of geeky things, whether it be movies, TV shows, comics, sports, or trivia.
