1917
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Produced by: Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall, Brian Oliver,
Written by: Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Starring: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch
It’s a bit jarring to realize that the last veteran of The Great War died some five years ago. When I was a kid, they dominated the social and political landscape, and while they were getting on, and the huffing old Colonel Blimps were sometimes an article of mild ridicule, nobody sneered at the sacrifice they made in what still may be the most horrific war in human history.
In late winter and early spring of 1917, the indeterminable slog that had turned much of Europe into a charnel pit still had no end in sight. Trenches on each side of the area known as No Man’s Land often hadn’t moved in three years, and big gains were measured in meters. In the UK, public support for the war had soured, and among the troops, morale was low. It’s impossible to guess how many acts of heroism in those later years were actually that, and not simply bids for a socially-acceptable form of suicide.
Mendes’ film, 1917, can’t quite portray this. It couldn’t show the real conditions in the trenches, not without endangering the health of the actors and disgusting everyone on the set. Nobody, not even Erich Maria Remarque, could capture what those long bloody lines in the ground must have smelled like. Nor did Mendes portray the grim despair that weighed down on everyone on the battlefield, from the top generals to the privates who died by the millions.
Which isn’t to say that Mendes didn’t do a good job: the film is a remarkable feat of camera work, with a stirring plot and superb acting. It can certainly take its place with the great World War One films, which are legion.
In the wake of an unexpected German withdrawal, a colonel (Cumberbatch) plans to advance and consolidate the nine kilometers of French land that seemingly has availed itself. However, on the eve of the deploy, aerial reconnaissance shows the Germans have laid a trap, and the 1,600 men in the planned sortie are certain to die or be captured. The general (Firth) volunteers two lance corporals, Will Schofield (McKay) and Tom Blake (Chapman) to alert the colonel to the trap. To do so, they must cross no-man’s land and through the destroyed town of Écoust-Saint-Mein. However, it is unlikely that all the Germans have withdrawn, and have booby-trapped the trenches they just vacated.
That odyssey, shot in two spectacular takes, is the whole of the film, and it makes for a riveting watch. Shot mostly in Sussex, the set dressings are utterly convincing, and the local color in the trenches no doubt made some rat wrangler fairly wealthy.
I did have a couple of grumbles watching it. In one scene early on, Schofield impales his hand on some barbed wire, and the untreated wound is immersed in water containing several corpses shortly thereafter. The hand is in a filth-encrusted rag for the rest of the film. Remarkably, this doesn’t cause any health problems.
The other was the diversity amongst the British troops. The “coloured fellows” would have been in their own division, the British West Indies Corps, and the well-spoken chap in the turban would have been in the British India Army. Even the Scots were largely segregated to their own redoubtable regiments.
But those are quibbles. Mendes, cast and crew pulled off an amazing tour de force, and it’s a movie that will stay with you for a long time.