An enforced pause

Measures aimed to discourage the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 were announced by the British Prime Minister on Monday evening 16 March 2020. These included strong advice to practise 'social distancing' as a precaution, quite apart from any personal necessity to embark on self-isolation.

This has resulted in the closure of galleries, museums, theatres, opera houses, cinemas and concert halls. Consequently this blog will fall silent for the foreseeable future - not for lack of will on my part, but for lack of opportunity.

I wish all my readers well in the meantime.

1917

seen on 10 March 2020

Sam Mendes directs George MacKay Will Schofield and Dean-Charles Chapman as Tom Blake in a film about two soldiers sent on a mission to prevent a fruitless advance from the trenches of the Western Front - the apparent German retreat from this section of the Front is in fact a trap. The story, which might on the face of it appear implausible, is based on stories told to the director by his grandfather Alfred Mendes. Actors such as Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, Adrian Scarborough, Daniel Mays and Jamie Parker provide generally unobtrusive cameos.

The film covers less than twenty-four hours, shot almost entirely with the two young soldiers in view, and devised to appear as if made of one continuous shot. Technically, then, it is an impressive achievement, and emotionally too we are forced to concentrate on the terrifying circumstances in which the two young men find themselves. The opening and closing episodes show populated trenches, but for much of the time there is an uneasy silence and emptiness, since the mission entrusted to the lance-corporals is to cross abandoned lines in order to reach the endangered Devonshire regiment in time. A personal incentive heightens the urgency, as Tom Blake's brother is a lieutenant in the Devonshire's.