I’m back at it again with another movie post, the first of 2020! Recently, I watched “1917”, a World War I masterpiece directed by Sam Mendes, director of the iconic film “American Beauty”.
“1917”, I admit, has a pretty basic plot however, I still felt compelled to write something about it because of the afterthoughts the film left me with.
In “1917”, two young solders Schofield and Blake (played by George Mackay and Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a mission; they must cross enemy lines to deliver a message to call off a planned attack. Unsurprisingly, if the message is not delivered, thousands will die, including Blake’s older brother. And so, off they go, to a most certain death it seems like.
Their impending survival, or not (I’m not going to ruin the movie), is not what makes this film remarkable. Its ability to put you in a war that occurred over 100 years ago is.
Schofield and Blake are not Captain America; they are regular people just like you and me. They are put into extreme circumstances, circumstances that actually happened to an entire group of people.
Throughout the film, you are presented with the horrors of the war; the trenches, the extreme filth, the dead bodies rotting, and the never ending fear. It is no wonder that those that came of age during World War I are called the Lost Generation.
To make it even more visceral, “1917” is filmed to look like one continuous shot, something that truly makes you feel like you are right there with Schofield and Blake. There is also little dialogue, and when there is, it’s jokes and conversations about food, normalizing the two soldiers even more. If this was not set in a war, it could be a movie about two blokes taking a walk through a really shitty forest.
I kept asking myself how someone would come back from this. The truth is, you probably don’t. Director Sam Mendes dedicated this film to his grandfather who enlisted when he was only 16. He didn’t speak about the war until he was in his 70’s.
Schofield and Blake’s story is based on actual events, which made me think, how many stories about World War I haven’t we heard? And more importantly, why isn’t World War I spoken about or taught in school as readily as World War II? In fact, besides “1917” and the 2011 film “War Horse”, I can’t think of another recent or major movie about it, which is a real shame.
Even when a war ends, its after effects are still felt decades after. France, for example, has something called the Zone Rouge, an area so devastated by World War I that it is still uninhabitable to this day. The Great War it seems like, has been forgotten in history and “1917” does a good job in bringing it back to the forefront of time. And as long as there continues to be wars, it should be.
I’m happy to report that as of today, “1917” has been nominated for several Academy Awards! If you want to know more about World War I or are a history nerd like me, you might enjoy They Shall Not Grow Old”, an excellent documentary that uses restored photographs, archival footage, and voice recordings of former soldiers to get an even greater idea of what their experience was like.
