Bea says:
As Cecil and I are not in the same city at the moment, I saw this alone at the
Everyman in Glasgow, on a wet Sunday. Sofa-style seats and
tea/coffee/drinks brought on a tray made this a very comfortable cinema
experience.
I did very much enjoy the 1917's narrative style - it feels like a long time since I've seen a film tell a story from start to finish without flash backs or the switching of storylines - and indeed only cover a short period in time, in this case about 11 hours or so.
The long takes have been much discussed in commentary and reviews on this film, and from what I can tell either make it a work of genius or a flop. For me, it fell somewhat in between. There is a sense of distance (the most common criticism of the long takes), but I didn't find that took away from the film for me - after all, my ability to truly identify with a young soldier in the trenches of WW1 is going to be limited. It felt instead like hearing a story told - and from the credits I gather that's exactly how this film began.
The story is absorbing, beautifully filmed (with the Clyde standing in for northern France) , well-acted and certainly well-directed, and the time passed quickly as the film built to its resolution, which I won't give away.
However - it is rather derivative of the WW1/war genre, and did remind me a lot of the 1980s Peter Weir classic Gallipoli. So nothing new in terms of story. Failed the Bechtel - not surprising, I guess, considering the context. A woman is featured at one stage, desperately trying to keep a baby alive. That particular scene reminded me of a scene in Apocalypse Now (the Directors Cut), which this film was also somewhat reminiscent of, but in general women were mothers, wives, sisters and girlfriends at home, despite the fact that women nursed in the front line in WW1 (Testament of Youth), and were certainly active in WW2 at least as spies and resistance.
I enjoyed this film for its window into history, and family history at that, and for its strong narrative and beautiful filming. Worth a watch.
***
Cecil says: I saw it on the same weekend as Bea but on the other side of the world, at the Classic Theatre, Elsternwick, in Melbourne’s leafy suburbs.
1917 tells a great story even if I think we focus too much on Tommy experience in WW1 or Churchill/Dunkirk etc in WW2.
The story is told as if with the two characters involved. It's a 'running' mission to get a message to the front line in time to stop a disastrous attack. And unlike Bea, I actually felt like the long takes helped me feel a part of the experience; much more immersed in 'real time' speed of events than in the modern-day social media style video clips which assume a minute attention span, and so zip from scene to scene in a milli-second, leaving old brains like mine still thinking of the action three scenes ago, while the camera has jumped on and taken more youthful brains with it.
As the intrepid pair set off from the trenches and wade through dead bodies, it conjures up images I am lucky enough only to have read before in the fantastic Pat Barker trilogy; and the scenes in the bombed-out town as our hero dodges flares and enemy gunfire; or the camera work in the water as he leaps into the fast-flowing river. It's all really well filmed and I felt a part of the process as it happened.
Apparently the River Clyde comes into it, though
god knows where or when - surely it’s the Clyde upstream somewhere near Lanark
rather than the wide shipping channel I’m used to seeing near Glasgow...
The final running scene reminded me of Mel Gibson
in Gallipoli, so there I did share Bea’s perception, and you realise how awful
it must have been to have been a fast sprinter in those war years - you’d get
to do all the life threatening jobs that needed speed above all.
I found the scenes with the French/Belgian mother
and baby in the bombed-out house very moving, but actually as Bea says, this is
a total Bechtel failure overall, as she was the only female appearance in the
whole film.
Finally, as usual I was one of the few diehards who
stayed for the full credits at the end. I was amazed how many plasterers and
carpenters they employed and how many digital artists (mostly with Indian
names) appear listed. I do sometimes think they overdo who gets ‘credited’
these days (‘Sheryl Smith brought the tea to the cast and film crew on Day 26
of filming...’), but there is usually something to learn or to note from
staying in to watch them all roll through.
***.5
