“1917” is directed by Sam Mendes and depicts the story of two soldiers in World War One given the dangerous task of taking a message to a regiment that is about to head into a trap. It is a straightforward plot, but the way the story unfolds is just harrowing, breathtaking, brilliant.

From the start of the movie Mendes keeps up the tension, even in the slower moments, the pauses of the film. At the back of the audience’s minds the clock is always ticking, counting down to a massacre if the message is not delivered in time. However this is not to say the film is really about excitement or drama. It is, rather, a travelogue of the horror and tragedy of war. The use of long takes, carefully edited so it seems as it the entire film is one shot, enhances the feeling that we are travelling with the protagonists through this nightmare landscape, feeling at every step of the way their exhaustion, desperation, and pain. We experience the intense emotion experienced by one of the heroes when his companion is killed, and how he cannot stop to grieve until the job is over. What a horrifying thing, experienced in every war, to lose friends and family and not even have the time to stop and experience those emotions. The film really shows that.

The film has the ‘hero’s journey’ as its plot. It’s one of the basic plots that people talk about when they talk about writing – the hero sets out to achieve a goal, reach a specific point. I have to wonder, due to its similarities and differences, whether the writers were deliberately skewing the idea. For example – the hero hears the call to adventure (he is given his orders), he meets a mentor who gives advice on the journey ahead (a drunken lieutenant), he crosses the threshold (the no-man’s land sequence), tests trials and challenges (the narrow miss of the booby trap, the rescue of the German pilot and it’s consequence, the help from the Belgian girl), the approach to the innermost cave (the ruined town), the ordeal/the resurrection (the river), the reward (he’s still alive). It’s close enough to the monomyth that the differences are suspicious. The only reward of the hero is that he is not dead, and given World War One this could change at any moment. There is no road back, as the war goes on and on. There is no enlightenment, because nothing really changes.

A great deal of credit must go to Roger Deakins, in charge of cinematography. He is known for his work in this area on films such as “Blade Runner 2049” and “No Country for Old Men”, and he really gives 100% to this film. I will give a particular scene as an example of this – one of the characters is knocked unconscious. When he exits the building he is in, it is dark, and there are fires and flares lighting up the ruined town he is in. There is a strange, ethereal beauty about this scene.  The lights over the ruined buildings give the whole sequence an unearthly feel, even while the character is dodging German bullets. How do you make a moment of war and destruction look so weirdly beautiful? Earlier in the film when the two heroes are crossing No Man’s Land, the opposite is true. They pass corpses of men and horses, rotting, bloated. There is no vegetation in this area as it has all been blasted away by shelling. It is just mud, rats, corpses, barbed wire. It is unrelentingly horrible. The long shots keep the viewer present with the protagonists, following the journey as closely as can be. Deakin’s work here is a masterpiece.

Dean-Charles Chapman and George Mackay play the heroes, Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield. I have not seen these actors before, but they were both very impressive in their roles. I found their portrayals of the characters very convincing. This film is not character based really, so we don’t get to delve into their backgrounds more than very superficially. That means that everything we see from them is a product of the current situation and the actors’ portrayal of their respective roles. They’re not heroes in the normal Hollywood context. They are two young men who are in a horrifying situation and trying to do what they need to do. I was particularly impressed with Mackay’s portrayal of Schofield, who is the character we stay with to the very end. His increasing exhaustion and hopelessness is well depicted by the actor. By the end of the film he is numb with shock and fatigue and who can blame him?

Then there is the score, by Thomas Newman. It might seem odd by one thing I can praise about this score is that it’s not too much. So many scores for films can overdo it, so the music is too loud, too obvious. That may be quite appropriate for action or superhero movies, popcorn flicks if you like. This score is beautifully understated. The film is not afraid to have sequences without music, and this makes the music all the more compelling when it is present. I think one of the most overt musical moments is in the scene in the ruined town that I referred to earlier. The weird beauty of the scene is enhanced by beautiful music, which even then is never intrusive, always fitting to the moment. The other obvious musical moment is near the end when Schofield comes across the regiment and there is a soldier singing to the troops. This is an interlude just before they are preparing to attack, and the moment of the solders sitting peacefully listening to a beautiful song, carving out that moment of peace before the violence and probable death they are about to face, is exquisitely tragic.

There are a number of British actors in small roles. Colin Firth plays the general who gives the heroes their mission, Benedict Cumberbatch is the Colonel they have to see, who doesn’t want to listen because he’s sick of waiting to attack. Andrew Scott is a drunken lieutenant who gives every appearance of having given up on the whole thing (understandably), and I particularly liked Mark Strong as a captain who helps Schofield along the way. I found it interesting that these actors were involved in roles that might be seen as very small for them, but they were obviously interested enough in the project to take those parts and enhanced the film in these roles.

“1917” can be watched even if you don’t like war movies. It is in no way a movie that promotes or glorifies war. At the same time it doesn’t beat you over the head with a ‘war is hell’ message either. It simply depicts, with often stomach-churning realism, what really went on in World War One, what really goes on in all wars. You can make your own conclusions from what you see. I cannot recommend this film too highly. It is in my opinion a masterpiece.