Sam Mandes’ 1917 movie is said to be the favorite to win this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture, nominated alongside the Korean blockbuster movie Parasite. But it’s unlikely that Parasite will break through the walls of 1917, which has already won the Golden Globe award.
1917 is the setting of World War I as the title suggests. The First World War, in which 40 million people were killed, and also was the first war to have suffered not only from soldiers, but the entire people of the country that participated in the war, and even neighboring countries that did not participate in the war.
Nevertheless, if the second World War, where 100 million people were killed, was severely affected by civilians, the First World War was largely at the expense of veterans. Weapons of of mass destruction were developed rapidly, planes and tanks were introduced to war for the first time, and even poison gas was used as a weapon, but military commanders' tactics and strategies did not exceed the level of war in the 19th century. The irony is that the times of the times demanded participation in the popular patriotism fever in all the countries that had participated in this tragic war, and the war began with enthusiasm and cheer. Those who shouted against the war were rejected as traitors. But people soon realized that modern warfare was a fear that made life extremely devastated and destroyed.
My Take / Review
The film is like a struggle between two soldiers who want to live and return home from this terrible world war, which makes the movie plot very simple. The film unfolds dynamically as if experiencing the game as a survival game mission. It's kind of like augmented reality. Those who were in positions with the British command were to give orders to stop 1,600 regiments trying to attack the Germans. It was a situation where German troops were forced to blast all of them, but all communication was cut off. Before starting an attack, you must send an abort command directly. In addition, one of the two soldiers, Brother Blake, is serving in the unit.
hat's amazing about this film is its development. The film usually consists of a myriad of shorts and scenes where the scenes are cut off and called. This film is only one shot from the beginning to the end of the two soldiers.
How can that be possible? At first I thought it was done with computer graphics, but it wasn't. Of course, rats that eat the bodies of the dead or crashing planes would have used computer graphics. Focusing only on two soldiers and constantly expanding their screens along the way, the tragedies of war are conveyed as if they were actually on the battlefield. Perhaps it is clear that the director's intention was to use such a shooting technique to achieve that effect.
A few years ago, there was a similar scene and technique in a drama that I couldn't remember the title, but it was a trilogy about the memory of each of the actual little stories of those who fought in Britain against World War I. One of them was the story of a soldier directly delivering orders, consisting only of a first-person gaze with a cam on his body.
1917* is also a British film and director Sam Mendes is from England. It is buried with the fine and dense narrative style of British film that I personally prefer rather than a big story. The two main young British actors, George Mackay and Dean-Charles Chapman, as well as overweight veterans such as Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong.
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/530915-1917?language=en-US
Critic: AAA