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.

Startling is the tranquillity and untouched beauty of the countryside behind the front lines - one is perhaps so used to grainy images of the sodden trenches that one forgets there was a hinterland; there are clever passages from these open fields into the beginnings of the trenches, gradually becoming the monstrous traps and eventually giving way to the barbed wire horror of no man's land. This too is unflinchingly but not gratuitously photographed, rotting bodies of men and fly-blown horses being part of the landscape. There is a judicious use of music and of silence to heighten tension, and an awkward camaraderie with other soldiers met with on the way.

The night sequences in a shattered town (Écoust-Saint-Mien) have a nightmarish quality as flares light up a ruined landscape and Will Schofield desperately tries to avoid snipers; the fact that he succeeds is (at one level) vital to the film, but also a timely reminder that shots in the semi-dark even by a determined enemy soldier could quite easily miss their mark. The successful shootings (two critical events in the film) are both at very close range.

Whether the nearby river could possibly be as dramatic as depicted in the film is (apparently) doubtful, as it does not match one's general impression of the Pas de Calais landscape, but poetic licence may be invoked. Whether the written instruction entrusted to Schofield could have survived the dowsing he experiences is an even more open question, and is perhaps a blemish in an otherwise meticulously envisaged, exciting and at times extremely poignant film. Though the photography of the blasted and hideous landscapes, the claustrophobic bunkers, and the eerie tranquillity of non-combatant areas is vital, the intimate scenes between the two young men provide the emotional heart of the story, and George MacKay's open, troubled, weary face encapsulates the crushing burden placed on young men at the time.