The attention to details of Gassner’s environments evoke all levels of disparaging disaster and twisted terror. That creative thrust is led by the key re-teaming of Mendes’ Skyfall partners and Blade Runner 2049 Oscar winners Dennis Gassner and Roger Deakins. Credit: Francois Duhamel for Universal Pictures/Dreamworks Pictures The assembled collection of masterly craftsmen furnish the ingenious wonder that more than matches the indomitable will of this narrative written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns of Penny Dreadful.

The visual, aural, and emotional layers of this film are utterly astounding. Where director Sam Mendes has outdone himself, and that is high praise considering his towering resume, is in the quality of immersion. Friendly chaps and fellow grunts encounter Blake and Schofield to caution them in an exasperating fashion “You’ll never make it.” Each time, the naysayers are answered simply with a resolute “Yes, I will.” Everyone knows a suicide mission when they see one. Getting there requires crossing No Man’s Land, German-occupied territory, and villages fraught with hidden dangers. His own character reveals itself as the journey evolves.īe that as it may, this mission is no idyllic stroll down a country road. Schofield may not share Blake’s immediate stake, but his temperament also denotes a man with something or someone to live for. His survival becomes an instant motivator, the epitome of the lengths one will go to save their family, pushing these two troopers beyond the front. The men have until the next morning to get to Mackenzie.Īmong Mackenzie’s possibly doomed men is Blake’s older brother (Richard Madden of Cinderella). Based on new aerial intelligence, Mackenzie does not know his division of 1,600 men is heading straight into the certain slaughter of a newly fortified German trench position that will outnumber his forces three-fold in men and firepower. The two friends check-in and receive recon orders to get urgent word from General Enimore (Oscar winner Colin Firth) to a disconnected Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) several miles away. This steady submergence begins our voyeuristic navigation through this ominous setting. The continuing track reveals trenches where the green is stripped away by the sandbags and makeshift wood frames before all bright colors become totally vacant. Lance Corporals Blake (the busy Dean-Charles Chapman of The King and Blinded by the Light) and Schofield ( Captain Fantastic’s George McKay) grab their gear and walk from that pastoral fringe of nature deeper into a scarred foreground. A tracking zoom on serene flowers in a green field gives way to the sleeping silence of a pair of nondescript British soldiers rousing to begin their day. The day is April 6, 1917, during The Great War near the Hindenburg Line of Operation Alberich. With zero backstory (and none needed really), 1917 takes immediate initiative.

1917 is all about that pull and concentrates its adrenaline into a relentless experience that will strafe your senses, from the hairs on the back of your neck to the fidgeting nerves that bounce your toes. That compelling force defines a soldier’s moral sense of duty and keeps a man watching, trekking, running, fighting, and downright surviving. Its velocity matches the unyielding pull of war itself. Kinetically engineered to simulate real-time, 1917 moves with a propulsive momentum like no other film of 2019 and no other combat flick of recent memory. To become a Patron and listen to our audio articles visit here: 1917 Audio Article Image: Cinema Blend This article is now available as an audio experience for our Patreon supporters.

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