It was one of the anecdotes that his grandfather, a World War I veteran, narrated that inspired Sam Mendes’ 1917.
Among the many stories, his grandfather spoke about the urgent delivery of a message between two posts while the clock was ticking. Often, the soldiers carrying the message would have to get into zones occupied by the opponents, making the trip fraught with the fear of enemies always lurching in the shadows.
1917, which has already won the best film award at the Golden Globes and has been nominated for the Academy Awards, begins with this message delivery system. Two young soldiers, lance corporal Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are entrusted with the delivery of a message by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) while they are a part of the British army in Northern France. They have to stop a fellow battalion, led by Colonel MacKenzie, positioned in another part, from launching an attack on the Germans after the British army has been notified of the Germans withdrawing from the zone “strategically”.
While entering a war movie, one is always ready to witness the bloodshed and terror, but it is the little moments of compassion that take you by surprise. And 1917 doesn’t fail in that front either. One moment that especially stands out is when the two men try to help a hurt German soldier. Another is a heart-warming scene of brotherhood before the soldiers get ready to attack. Followed by complete silence, that moment is elevated as a young man sings the Wayfaring Stranger.
It is the mechanism used to tell this story that makes 1917 an evocative and deeply affecting experience. If Christopher Nolan raised the suspense through the cinematography and music in his 2017 war film, Dunkirk, Mendes combines the elevated cinematography by Roger Deakins and music by Thomas Newman with a mechanism of narrating the story in one take. That builds the suspense. As the two guys traverse through the no man’s land, rickety paths with landfills coming in their way, the camera unhesitatingly also captures the decaying bodies of soldiers and war horses. Rats, flies and insects have infested those bodies and the two soldiers, hurried and exasperated, care less about their contact with them. The mission is important, the horrors on the way can be dealt with later.
Even as they fight to survive, the urgency that the two soldiers show during their mission, focuses on the importance of the very many forgotten soldiers who would have put their lives on stake without the mention of their names in the history. To that effect, Mendes’ casting works brilliantly. The recognisable stars, including Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott and Jamie Parker, have special appearances as the senior officials calling the shots. However, it is the lesser known actors who do the heavy-lifting—a clever tool to put the message across that it was not only the known, gloriously written names who fought the wars.
Film: 1917
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman
Rating: 4/5
