1917 |OT| A war film directed by Sam Mendes (wide release on January 10th)

[Paranormal Panini]

Having mulled over the movie for a bit, I think it might be one of the very few actual anti-war movies. Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan or other non-American war movies usually glorify something about war - be it an action-sequence, a particularly fascinating character or the soundtrack.
I didn't see any of that in 1917.

Spoiler

Blake and Scofield don't win a decisive battle, they don't show particular heroism or patriotism. And when Scofield reaches Mackenzie he can't stop the first wave. I also really enjoyed that MacKenzie wasn't some kind of captivating variety of Kurtz. Just someone who hoped there was a chance to end the stalemate.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the little bit of diversity shown with a couple of black soldiers and the Indian (?). Not that much but a little bit more accurate than Dunkirk et al.

Otherwise, I don't think the one-shot approach worked that well. There were some fantastic set pieces where it worked REALLY well, but overall it wasn't needed. Especially since there are time skips in the movie.

 

[BrightLightLava]

I liked the movie, but man these guys are bad at running away from stuff that's coming straight towards them.

 

[Deleted member 13798]

Having mulled over the movie for a bit, I think it might be one of the very few actual anti-war movies. Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan or other non-American war movies usually glorify something about war - be it an action-sequence, a particularly fascinating character or the soundtrack.
I didn't see any of that in 1917.

Spoiler

Blake and Scofield don't win a decisive battle, they don't show particular heroism or patriotism. And when Scofield reaches Mackenzie he can't stop the first wave. I also really enjoyed that MacKenzie wasn't some kind of captivating variety of Kurtz. Just someone who hoped there was a chance to end the stalemate.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the little bit of diversity shown with a couple of black soldiers and the Indian (?). Not that much but a little bit more accurate than Dunkirk et al.

Otherwise, I don't think the one-shot approach worked that well. There were some fantastic set pieces where it worked REALLY well, but overall it wasn't needed. Especially since there are time skips in the movie.

Click to shrink...

I really think you might be misreading Apocalypse Now. I'm assuming you're likely referring to the Ride of the Valkyries scene. I don't think in the context of the film it's meant to glorify war at all- it's unabashedly violent and especially when you put it next to the "I love the smell of napalm" scene, which is also taken out of context all the time.

People may look at it as a "kickass action scene" because general audiences often miss a lot of points.

 

[AndreGX]

I liked the movie, but man these guys are bad at running away from stuff that's coming straight towards them.

Click to shrink...

They're graduates of the Prometheus School of Evasion

 

[MizneyWorld]

My favorite part was the trek thru no man's land pretty much near the beginning.

The whole sequence was tense as hell seeing all the carnage and pushing forward, waiting for a barrage of bullets.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

Having mulled over the movie for a bit, I think it might be one of the very few actual anti-war movies. Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan or other non-American war movies usually glorify something about war - be it an action-sequence, a particularly fascinating character or the soundtrack.
I didn't see any of that in 1917.

Spoiler

Blake and Scofield don't win a decisive battle, they don't show particular heroism or patriotism. And when Scofield reaches Mackenzie he can't stop the first wave. I also really enjoyed that MacKenzie wasn't some kind of captivating variety of Kurtz. Just someone who hoped there was a chance to end the stalemate.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the little bit of diversity shown with a couple of black soldiers and the Indian (?). Not that much but a little bit more accurate than Dunkirk et al.

Otherwise, I don't think the one-shot approach worked that well. There were some fantastic set pieces where it worked REALLY well, but overall it wasn't needed. Especially since there are time skips in the movie.

Click to shrink...

Oh man, Apocalypse Now as not an anti-war movie is an absolutely scorching take. Not going to find much support for that, especially among anyone who has read the book that it used as inspiration.

 

[Lord Moriarty007]

I really think you might be misreading Apocalypse Now. I'm assuming you're likely referring to the Ride of the Valkyries scene. I don't think in the context of the film it's meant to glorify war at all- it's unabashedly violent and especially when you put it next to the "I love the smell of napalm" scene, which is also taken out of context all the time.

People may look at it as a "kickass action scene" because general audiences often miss a lot of points.

Click to shrink...

There is only one part I think is gloried violence hell even Sam Mendas had a scene in Jar Head that address it

 

[BrightLightLava]

They're graduates of the Prometheus School of Evasion

Click to shrink...

I thought the same thing. A (spoiler) isn't very wide, just pick a direction!

 

[Deleted member 5359]

That was such an intense film. I really liked it.

Spoiler

I didn't cry when Blake died but I nearly started sobbing when Schofield pled with the men to help him push the truck. Just typing about it is making me tear up.

 

[Heromanz]

A masterful war movie.

 

[Deleted member 16136]

Watched this last night, loved every minute of it, cant take your eyes off it.

Although the moment when

Spoiler

Blake died

, and there was nothing but silence, some dickhead decided to crack open his can of coke. Did laugh.

 

[Ac30]

Fantastic movie, but that scene

Spoiler

with the french lady and baby

is completely pointless and a waste of time (also she suddenly speaks English? Wut?)

 

[Dr Doom]

It's ok.

The problem with one shot movie.
Scenarios needs to keep happening that makes it (lack of better word) theme park ride. Some of the drama needed time to sink in

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

While it's visually great and sometime there's great atmosphere, with the best scene easily being

Spoiler

blake's death

outside of that it's not really anything special....



You go into calm scene with really tense moment that really took me in, then right after that you go into an action scene that is way too hollywood-like with all the luck and it take me out of the movie

Doesn't help that they show only the "good guys" suffering while german are always okay and not shown once that they don't want to be there either!

and then one big problem, but it's more of a nitpick

Spoiler

there's absolutely no way he traveled 15 km in that amount of time, with the distance they showed them walking, and with all the shit show happening during all the movie... The one take style is great but it really makes the main plot a bit ridiculous... and the luck he has to stumble upon them right aways, lol

So in the end i really liked how the movie starts but then i wasn't into it that much after the scene i talked about in the first spoiler tag

 

[Realyst]

Fantastic movie, but that scene

Spoiler

with the french lady and baby

is completely pointless and a waste of time (also she suddenly speaks English? Wut?)

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's not a wasted scene. The point of it was to show that the character sympathizes with the woman and baby like a husband and father would. We learn in the last scene with the photo that he's a husband and father back home. It's actually what motivates him to complete the mission.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan or other non-American war movies usually glorify something about war

Click to shrink...

Say what

 

[S1kkZ]

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's not a wasted scene. The point of it was to show that the character sympathizes with the woman and baby like a husband and father would. We learn in the last scene with the photo that he's a husband and father back home. It's actually what motivates him to complete the mission.

Click to shrink...

yep, scene is important.

 

[Naijaboy]

There's no doubt that this movie is a cinematic and technical achievement, especially the flare scene.

However, the plot itself is pretty basic outside of that and the music.

 

[More_Badass]

There's no doubt that this movie is a cinematic and technical achievement, especially the flare scene.

However, the plot itself is pretty basic outside of that and the music.

Click to shrink...

Nothing wrong or flawed with a basic/simple plot. That's one of the movie's strengths

 

[Cess007]

Just coming back from this movie, and I am floored. I can't remember the last time I was so immersed in a movie, that time slipped away. When the movie ended, I was like "where do the last 2 hours went?". Incredible movie.

 

[Deleted member 5359]

Spoiler

Im pretty sure that the barbed wire cutting his hand killed him.

 

[efr]

Spoiler

Im pretty sure that the barbed wire cutting his hand killed him.

Click to shrink...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5751665/1917-movie-history/?amp=true

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Just coming back from this movie, and I am floored. I can't remember the last time I was so immersed in a movie, that time slipped away. When the movie ended, I was like "where do the last 2 hours went?". Incredible movie.

Click to shrink...

Saw it yesterday. And same thought.
I was so immersed into the movie that those 2 hours passed by so fast!

Loved every second of it!

 

[HStallion]

Saw this last night and it might be the best war film I've seen in ages and I highly prefer it to Dunkirk. Everything I've said has been repeated dozens of times but man what a spectacular film on every front and as much as the cinematography gets huge praise I think the musical score is excellent and incredible evocative on its own. Combined with the visuals it becomes a real masterpiece.

I also have to wonder about people complaining about the main guy not getting shot have ever actually fired a gun outside of Call of Duty. Pro Tip hitting a moving target surrounded by obstacles is not easy, especially if you're running too and at night. Oh and they can shoot back if they wanted.

There's no doubt that this movie is a cinematic and technical achievement, especially the flare scene.

However, the plot itself is pretty basic outside of that and the music.

Click to shrink...

Some of the best films every created have not exactly been plot focused, its by no means a requirement for a great film.

 

[Fintendo]

That was the best war film I have seen this far, cinematography and audio was extremely good, I also noticed silence and a high age variety in my local cinema.

 

[Speevy]

This was a really fine film. I was very invested in it, and of course it's quite striking visually. Roger Deakins is a genius. I don't think it should get best picture, but those dismissing it are underrating a bit.

War movies have different aims. I think a lot of them aim to show the carnage of war as well as the sacrifice that goes into soldiers trying desperately to keep each other alive. This had that, but what was most effective for me was how fearful these two young men were. You really felt like they were the wrong soldiers to be embarking on this daring mission (small in stature, without a lot of macho characteristics), and I thought this was very effective in ratcheting up the tension.

 

[HStallion]

I think one of the most powerful moments for me was a small one:

Spoiler

I'm not sure what rank he was but one of the officers that was on the front line and was just standing their crying and nearly incoherent as Schofield was trying to find the general.

 

[whytemyke]

Just saw this yesterday and really really enjoyed it.

One thing I noticed that was cool but seems hasn't been discussed much was the little note given when they get to town.

Spoiler

Mark Strong simply says "Make sure there are witnesses." When he explains that some men just want a battle, it sets off the concern that Schofield will get there only to be told it doesn't matter and it was all for nothing.

That one little bit really is a nice piece of humanity and helps to ratchet up tension later in the film.

 

[Deleted member 46493]

I enjoyed this film but it failed to have any emotional impact on me. I felt kind of strange because the friend sitting next to me was on the verge of tears and the other two were also very moved.

I liked the technical aspects and that it presents war realistically - it's just another day in the war. I think it deserves awards, but I barely felt anything, and some of my favorite films ever are also slow and immersive (Aguirre, The Wrath of God) so not sure why it didn't stick. Oh well.

 

[Tremorah]

Movie reminded me of Revenant, really pretty to look at and listen to but kind of hollow in the acting and story department

Solid 8/10

 

[Speevy]

Revenant, really pretty to look at and listen to but kind of hollow

Click to shrink...

 

[Yogi]

I enjoyed this film but it failed to have any emotional impact on me. I felt kind of strange because the friend sitting next to me was on the verge of tears and the other two were also very moved.

I liked the technical aspects and that it presents war realistically - it's just another day in the war. I think it deserves awards, but I barely felt anything, and some of my favorite films ever are also slow and immersive (Aguirre, The Wrath of God) so not sure why it didn't stick. Oh well.

Click to shrink...

How is that your favourite film?

 

[Ithil]

Some absolutely phenomenal scenes in here. The slow, filthy trek through No Man's Land, especially when the music began to ratchet up as they approached the German trench. That beautiful yet scary run through the ruined town with only flares lighting him up and throwing those incredible shadows everywhere. Then the big signature scene landed perfectly, huge emotion in his frantic run across the battlefield while hundreds of soldiers are pouring out of the trench around him running to their doom, especially with that pounding music. Seeing more and more people sprinting past him to completely pointless deaths was the most wrenching part of the film, I thought.
The simple message on the back of his photograph at the end also gave me a good wallop. Those scenes are gonna stick with me, and I can't ask for anything more from a film.

This won't get acting nods because there's no "big" acting scenes, no grand speeches or snotty blubbering, it's all very understated but felt very authentic (Richard Madden's brief appearance in particular, a great display of being blindsided by a wave of grief while attempting to maintain his soldierly composure).

While I wish Parasite (another film with very understated acting that deserves noms over those melodramatic biopics they toss acting awards at every year) would win everything it was nominated for at the Oscars, I'm ok with this winning the big ones as seems likely. It's not Green Book or Crash, that's for damn sure.

 

[Odesu]

There's no doubt that this movie is a cinematic and technical achievement, especially the flare scene.

However, the plot itself is pretty basic outside of that and the music.

Click to shrink...

I don't see why that needs a "however". Basic plots are not inherently worse or less entertaining than complex plots full of twists. Not sure you wanted to say that, just wanted to address that framing^^

 

[cLOUDo]

Best war's movie to me

 

[Elliott]

It was a bit of a slog.

 

[duckroll]

However, the plot itself is pretty basic outside of that and the music.

Click to shrink...

Let it sit for a few days after watching it earlier in the week. I don't think the plot is "basic" at all. Simple maybe, but there's a lot of attention to detail, deliberate choices, and depth to the decisions in what sort of story they wanted to tell and how to tell it. This is a story about World War 1, it's a story about what messengers meant for the war at that time with the limitations in technology, it's a story about people who were in the war and what they might have done in little moments, it's about how confusing and pointless the conflict felt, and it's about how acts of heroism aren't just big deeds and the impact they have don't have to be monumental to be worthwhile.

How often do we see actual WW1 portrayed in films as opposed to WW2? And even then look at how films like Wonder Women take WW1 aesthetics and apply WW2 morality and politics onto it to make it "familiar" enough for general audiences. WW1 was the first modern war on a global scale, it was confusing for most who fought it, there wasn't a particularly strong good vs evil moral motivator, and most soldiers were just hoping to get through it. Little things mattered more. Making it a small scale story about a big scale event shows the humanity of individuals, and for a 2 hour film I think they managed to make rather mundane things feel like a series of encounters that showcased a wide range of emotions - there's tension, tragedy, hope, love, compassion, betrayal, charity, etc. The entire journey felt like a little big adventure for one soldier, and the technical excellence and audiovisual mastery help execute that in an astonishing way, but it is by no means a film without a point or a heart. To say it is basic ignores that many stories try to be complicated but lack a cohesive theme or something it really wants to say. 1917 does.

 

[Kinthey]

Doesn't help that they show only the "good guys" suffering while german are always okay and not shown once that they don't want to be there either!

Click to shrink...

Sam Mendes did kind of try to show that with the one young German soldier he encounters

"These two soldiers in the film could be Germans. It's not about the British are great, the Germans are bad. When he meets a German the lad is as young and frightened as he is. It's about the experience of war rather than a political statement."

Click to shrink...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...itish-are-great-the-germans-are-bad-1.4117977

Personally I feel a bit conflicted about it. On the one hand did the Germans come off as kind of irredeemable evil (particularly the pilot) but on the other hand, lots and lots of evil shit happens in a war. That the Germans left behind booby traps and lone snipers after their fake retreat is also based on facts. You don't want to make it feel you downplay any of that stuff either.

 

[geomon]

My favorite movie of the year and one of my favorites of all time. I swear they took certain shots straight out of Dante's Inferno.

 

[Donos]

Era kind of lured me into the movie and I'm a bit disappointed. Some really great cinematography but somehow it doesn't stick. Not a bad movie but it's missing just something to make it really remarkable for me. It kind of went along.

 

[sibarraz]

Sam Mendes did kind of try to show that with the one young German soldier he encounters

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...itish-are-great-the-germans-are-bad-1.4117977

Personally I feel a bit conflicted about it. On the one hand did the Germans come off as kind of irredeemable evil (particularly the pilot) but on the other hand, lots and lots of evil shit happens in a war. That the Germans left behind booby traps and lone snipers after their fake retreat is also based on facts. You don't want to make it feel you downplay any of that stuff either.

Click to shrink...

For me the pilot wasnt portrayed as someone evil, he was just scared because he was close to die and worst of all, at the hands of the enemy.

For us, the audience the british soldiers are the heroes because we are watching their journey, but for the pilot, they were 2 guys from the enemy who dont even speak their same language and who according to propaganda probably would have done terrible things to him. Hell they even made him cry for his mother to show you that he was as human as the british

 

[Mollymauk]

If you are looking for another powerful WWI film, I highly recommend Wooden Crosses, a French film from 1932. It's currently playing on the criterion channel. It follows a French regiment through battles, leading to a conclusion of enormous depth and empathy.

Wooden Crosses

Hailed by the _New York Times_ on its Paris release as "one of the great films in motion picture history," Raymond Bernard's _Wooden Crosses_, France's answer to _All Quiet on the Western Front_, still stuns with its depiction of the travails of one French regiment during World War I. Using a...

www.criterion.com

 

[FernandoRocker]

Just saw the movie two hours ago. Wow.

That flare scene. Wow. It was an audiovisual orgasm for my senses.

 

[Arkeband]

The only thing that really bothered me about this was the panning shots that were in 24fps and were just an unintelligible, stuttery blur. Like why even do them if the audience can't make out what you're showing them.

 

[thesoapster]

Just saw the movie two hours ago. Wow.

That flare scene. Wow. It was an audiovisual orgasm for my senses.

Click to shrink...

It's such an amazing sequence. I hadn't seen anything quite like it before this film.

 

[Azzanadra]

I loved this movie. Might be my favorite movie of 2019 and certainly one of my favorite war movies of all time. It felt kinda...relateable in a way, like I could see myself in Will- not some adept soldier as you often see in war movies and games, but a young man most likely conscripted whose given a seemingly impossible task, just barely making it to his objective against all odds.

 

[NealMcCauley]

Bump, Universal dated March 10 for digital release and March 24 physical. One of the bonus features is a solo commentary by Roger Deakins.

 

[MysticGon]

More movies like this need to be made. War movies that are just great human dramas with patriotism taking something of a back seat. War is hell and shouldn't be glorified.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

It's 97cent on German prime until tomorrow. Just watched it. Really good anti war movie. Some intense scenes, beautifully shot. Some not so great CGI here and there but it wasn't that bad.