But other than those, I can't really think of any stand out World War I movies. And it can't possibly be because those films said everything there is to say about that war. I think that WWI is a hard war to talk about because it wasn't glorious. Because it was humanity at our worst. Because it was one of the biggest moments of change in the history of the world. And maybe it's just hard, and unpleasant to reckon with that.
So when it was announced that Sam Mendes was making a WWI movie, and that he had signed cinematographer Roger Deakins to his cause, I was immediately intrigued. When I saw the first preview, I knew for sure that I'd be buying a ticket. When the film won two Golden Globes before it even had a wide release, my ass was in that theater seat.
So how was it?
I. What Is It?
This is the story of two men who have to get an urgent message to a company of soldiers only a few miles away. Only it's 1917, the landscape is blasted, the enemy has pulled back, and the telephone lines have been cut. What should be an easy message delivery quickly spirals out of control into a tour of hell. All against a racing clock: that company of soldiers attacks the enemy line the next morning, and they are walking into a trap. The only thing that can stop them are two British soldiers with a letter.II. A Waking Nightmare
There are many who will (and already have) dismissed this film as a "gimmick film." The film is presented as one continuous shot, and there are critics who think that that trick summarizes the film's appeal, and effectively renders the movie a one-trick pony.
But the gimmick isn't hollow. It serves and reinforces thematic needs by dropping the audience into the action, effectively making us the third man on this mission, and it helps ratchet up the tension by limiting the scope of what we see to what these men see. The camera keeps itself within a ten-to-fifteen foot radius of at least one of our boys the entire time. This roots the film, and your experience, squarely in the perspective of our protagonists.
It also helps establish the sense that these men are trapped in a waking nightmare. We are stuck with them, and can never really leave them, so certain elements sort of breeze into the narrative from nowhere: a dogfight overhead yields disastrous results; a friendly caravan of trucks arrives mere seconds too late; bridges are blown out; trenches are deserted; felled trees and the machine-gunned corpses of cows dot the landscape. And because the camera keeps us with the boys, a terrible dramatic tension is established because the audience is used to having a kind of omniscient perspective. Usually the camera pulls out to establish a location, or to show us key information. But not here. Never here. We are stuck with these two soldiers, and their fear of the unknown and unexpected becomes ours.
What's more: we rarely ever see the enemy up close. And when we do, it isn't for long. The enemy soldiers become wraiths just out of sight and out of focus. They are dangerous and they are trying to kill us, but we have no idea who they are. Even if we have the sneaking suspicion that they are just like us: frightened and alone in this hell.
The only time we really see them up close is when we see their corpses floating in water, slumped across the battlefield or gruesomely stuck in barbed wire.
And the film unfolds in real time. It shouldn't take these boys long at all to get this message to their comrades. In any other time it wouldn't. But they are embroiled in the largest war the world had ever seen (until that point). In this war inches are hard earned, and a trek of a few miles is, at multiple times, dismissed as impossible.
You'll feel like you're there with them. You'll also feel the deep sense of absurdity and hopelessness that has infected the front lines of this conflict.
At the end of the movie, one of our characters collapses against a tree, finally getting a moment of rest. He looks out over a beautiful open field, with lush green grass and the sun peeking out over the hills. Not three hundred yards behind him, though? Is hell: churned earth and mutilated bodies. How can these two things exist side by side? Right there next to each other?
Obviously this was NOT shot in one take. Large portions of it were, undoubtedly, but, if you pay close attention, you can pick out likely edit points. But the fact that the film feels of a whole is impressive, and makes it a monumental feat of movie-making. Consider the scope of the sets, and the sheer number of extras, along with the explosions and effects.
Is it a gimmick? Sure, but the gimmick has rarely ever been pulled off like this before.
Leaving the theater is a lot like thrashing out of a dream. You'll be thankful for the sunlight and maybe a bit out of breath.
Thomas Newman's score keeps the pace, and helps elevate the tension throughout. When his score soars, it earns every swell, but it stays in a kind of low-key forward propulsion for most of the run.
And then we have the photography by Roger Deakins. The man is probably the greatest living cinematographers on the planet, and he may well be one of the best who ever put his eye behind a camera lens. The gimmick of shooting this thing like a continuous oner would be difficult enough, but to do that AND still capture some of the sweeping shots he gets is like having your cake and eating it, too.
Lee Smith deserves an Oscar for making this film work. It never feels like separate pieces stitched together, and, if you weren't a film nerd who loves to get into the weeds like me, you might sit there, gobsmacked, after the credits roll wondering how the hell they did that. Good editing isn't a thing that many people notice. This film only works because the editing is absolutely incredible.
Sam Mendes is one of the best directors working today. His resume includes prestige dramas and spy thrillers, and now he can add a war epic to the mix. The script, written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, is also just pitch perfect. The dialogue is natural and provides details and plot elements without resorting to exposition dumps. The story rockets forward naturally and suspensefully. It captures the utter awfulness and existential absurdity of war without resorting to clumsy sermons or plodding monologues. What's more, the script allows the story to be told visually, too: there are large stretches of this film that have no talking at all. It takes a great writer to write great dialogue, but it takes an incredible writer to know when to have their characters keep quiet.
This movie is so thoroughly and painstakingly constructed, that you are simply transported there into the thick of it. It stops being a film and becomes an experience.
This movie tells a simple story that reckons with themes that any human being can identify and be concerned with. This is a movie about World War I, but it's about all war. It's a movie about two men, but its about humanity.
I like that. I like movies like that. And I think those movies are rare.
- It is one of the best war films ever made. In this time of great uncertainty, more people should watch this movie if they have any illusions of what another armed conflict in the middle east would look like.But the gimmick isn't hollow. It serves and reinforces thematic needs by dropping the audience into the action, effectively making us the third man on this mission, and it helps ratchet up the tension by limiting the scope of what we see to what these men see. The camera keeps itself within a ten-to-fifteen foot radius of at least one of our boys the entire time. This roots the film, and your experience, squarely in the perspective of our protagonists.
It also helps establish the sense that these men are trapped in a waking nightmare. We are stuck with them, and can never really leave them, so certain elements sort of breeze into the narrative from nowhere: a dogfight overhead yields disastrous results; a friendly caravan of trucks arrives mere seconds too late; bridges are blown out; trenches are deserted; felled trees and the machine-gunned corpses of cows dot the landscape. And because the camera keeps us with the boys, a terrible dramatic tension is established because the audience is used to having a kind of omniscient perspective. Usually the camera pulls out to establish a location, or to show us key information. But not here. Never here. We are stuck with these two soldiers, and their fear of the unknown and unexpected becomes ours.
What's more: we rarely ever see the enemy up close. And when we do, it isn't for long. The enemy soldiers become wraiths just out of sight and out of focus. They are dangerous and they are trying to kill us, but we have no idea who they are. Even if we have the sneaking suspicion that they are just like us: frightened and alone in this hell.
The only time we really see them up close is when we see their corpses floating in water, slumped across the battlefield or gruesomely stuck in barbed wire.
And the film unfolds in real time. It shouldn't take these boys long at all to get this message to their comrades. In any other time it wouldn't. But they are embroiled in the largest war the world had ever seen (until that point). In this war inches are hard earned, and a trek of a few miles is, at multiple times, dismissed as impossible.
You'll feel like you're there with them. You'll also feel the deep sense of absurdity and hopelessness that has infected the front lines of this conflict.
At the end of the movie, one of our characters collapses against a tree, finally getting a moment of rest. He looks out over a beautiful open field, with lush green grass and the sun peeking out over the hills. Not three hundred yards behind him, though? Is hell: churned earth and mutilated bodies. How can these two things exist side by side? Right there next to each other?
Obviously this was NOT shot in one take. Large portions of it were, undoubtedly, but, if you pay close attention, you can pick out likely edit points. But the fact that the film feels of a whole is impressive, and makes it a monumental feat of movie-making. Consider the scope of the sets, and the sheer number of extras, along with the explosions and effects.
Is it a gimmick? Sure, but the gimmick has rarely ever been pulled off like this before.
Leaving the theater is a lot like thrashing out of a dream. You'll be thankful for the sunlight and maybe a bit out of breath.
III. Incredible Ensemble
Our two main stars, Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay, deliver earnest and powerful lead performances. They turn every word of dialogue, each inflection, and every moment of physicality into necessary pieces that establish different and nuanced characters. The film rests on their ability to be in the action, and to bring you there with them, and they succeed in spades.
But flitting in and out of the movie are a cavalcade of interesting side characters being played by British film royalty. Andrew Scott plays a jaded officer that outfits our heroes and sees them off on their journey out of the trenches (his monologue is one of my favorite moments in the film); Mark Strong strolls in, later, as an officer in a caravan, providing a key moment of respite and support; Benedict Cumberbatch tells an entire epic story in a scant few minutes of screen time.
This is not a character study. It does not feature much exposition or background details. The heavy lifting is left to the actors and they bear their burden to excellent effect.
But flitting in and out of the movie are a cavalcade of interesting side characters being played by British film royalty. Andrew Scott plays a jaded officer that outfits our heroes and sees them off on their journey out of the trenches (his monologue is one of my favorite moments in the film); Mark Strong strolls in, later, as an officer in a caravan, providing a key moment of respite and support; Benedict Cumberbatch tells an entire epic story in a scant few minutes of screen time.
This is not a character study. It does not feature much exposition or background details. The heavy lifting is left to the actors and they bear their burden to excellent effect.
IV. A Technical Marvel
I mentioned it earlier, but I'll devote some more words to this: this movie is a miracle of filmmaking. The costumes are incredible: mud-splattered, weather-beaten and lived-in. The sets are labyrinthine and stuffed with details, as well as littered with a literal army of shell-shocked extras in various stages of trauma and fatigue.Thomas Newman's score keeps the pace, and helps elevate the tension throughout. When his score soars, it earns every swell, but it stays in a kind of low-key forward propulsion for most of the run.
And then we have the photography by Roger Deakins. The man is probably the greatest living cinematographers on the planet, and he may well be one of the best who ever put his eye behind a camera lens. The gimmick of shooting this thing like a continuous oner would be difficult enough, but to do that AND still capture some of the sweeping shots he gets is like having your cake and eating it, too.
Lee Smith deserves an Oscar for making this film work. It never feels like separate pieces stitched together, and, if you weren't a film nerd who loves to get into the weeds like me, you might sit there, gobsmacked, after the credits roll wondering how the hell they did that. Good editing isn't a thing that many people notice. This film only works because the editing is absolutely incredible.
Sam Mendes is one of the best directors working today. His resume includes prestige dramas and spy thrillers, and now he can add a war epic to the mix. The script, written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, is also just pitch perfect. The dialogue is natural and provides details and plot elements without resorting to exposition dumps. The story rockets forward naturally and suspensefully. It captures the utter awfulness and existential absurdity of war without resorting to clumsy sermons or plodding monologues. What's more, the script allows the story to be told visually, too: there are large stretches of this film that have no talking at all. It takes a great writer to write great dialogue, but it takes an incredible writer to know when to have their characters keep quiet.
This movie is so thoroughly and painstakingly constructed, that you are simply transported there into the thick of it. It stops being a film and becomes an experience.
V. A Movie That Can Be Taken at Face Value
This is a movie that doesn't demand anything of its audience before they sit down. Does it help to know about World War I? Sure. But this movie isn't about the geopolitical causes or repercussions of the war. This is a movie about two men trying very hard to just stay alive. And because of that, you don't need to know anything. The movie isn't interested in history lessons or clever turns of plot.This movie tells a simple story that reckons with themes that any human being can identify and be concerned with. This is a movie about World War I, but it's about all war. It's a movie about two men, but its about humanity.
I like that. I like movies like that. And I think those movies are rare.
Why You Should See It
- It transcends just being a movie and becomes an experience.
- Every single thing about it is well made and thoroughly realized.
- It is epic without being overlong. At 119 minutes, you'll be exhausted by the end, but not because the film overstayed its welcome.
Why You Shouldn't See It
In Conclusion
Miscellany
- The production company dug just under a mile's worth of trenches for this film. Some sequences required as many as 500 extras.- The film was shot between April and June of 2019.
- In the grand sprint at the end, George MacKay runs into a few soldiers and gets bowled over. This was not in the script. It just happened, and they kept rolling.
- Neither soldier's first names are revealed until the end of the movie.
- Tom Holland was initially in talks to star, but had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts.
- The film had a very limited release on December 4th, 2019 so that it could be eligible for awards season. It won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director before it even hit its wide release.
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