BEFORE: This wasn't part of the plan, I admit, but I would rather go into the last days of Oscar season having watched three of the Best Picture nominees, instead of two. As long as I've got the opportunity to drop in another one, I should probably take it, right? So Mark Strong carries over from "Stockholm", and he'll be here tomorrow as I get back on the plan. Even if this makes me late for starting the romance chain, which I believe it will, I should watch this.
THE PLOT: As a World War I regiment assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.
AFTER: Like, I just don't know if "1917" can win Best Picture, though it seems to have quite a bit of momentum right now. With my terrible track record in the past few years - I never quite see enough nominees to have a decent chance of seeing the winning film BEFORE it wins - I think maybe I'm hedging some bets by getting this one out of the way. Now that I've seen "The Irishman", "Joker" and this one, I think that means the clear favorite is now "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood", right?(And to think that I could have worked that one in, too, between Al Pacino's appearances in "The Irishman" and "Stand Up Guys" - oh, well...)
Besides, so my argument goes, the major selling point here is that "1917" is designed to look like one continuous shot, with no visible cuts. That's a trick, right? Yeah, but then again, isn't all filmmaking just a bunch of tricks? Nothing is real in the end, not the lighting, not the background, that plane is just a prop, the sound was dubbed in later, it's all trickery and fakery to get the best image and sound up on the screen, so why am I so concerned about the gimmickry of making many shots look like one big one, with no cuts? Besides, "Birdman" tried to do the same thing, and that went on to win Best Picture a few years back. "The Revenant" didn't really have Leonardo DiCaprio jumping off a cliff on a real horse, or getting mauled by a real bear, and that film did OK during its awards season, too.
War films also seem to have something of an inside track, too, like "Dunkirk, "Darkest Hour" and "Churchill" all did in 2017. These things come in waves, I guess, because the 2018 nominated films didn't really have any prominent war stories, but then they're back in the 2019 line-up, with one film set in World War I and "Jojo Rabbit" set during World War II. Is that what's bothering me, that the war film had a little easier time getting nominated? I've got to learn to put all this petty stuff aside, and try to analyze "1917" fairly. Which is nearly impossible, because once a film gets the nomination, suddenly I have to stop and think about it, like "Is this one worthy? Could it win Best Picture?" But just phrasing the question that way sets me up in a defensive manner, now I want to pick it apart, and that doesn't feel impartial at all.
OK, so here are my complaints about the story. This journey from the trenches to get a message to the Devonshire Regiment is very long and frustrating, from an observer's point of view. I know, it's a difficult mission so it's supposed to be frustrating, but I'm left wondering, if these two soldiers knew how important the message was, which they did, why didn't they GO STRAIGHT THERE? It felt like they kept getting distracted - yes, sure, it's a war zone, yes, I understand that things go wrong on a mission, but it's almost ridiculous how their journey doesn't go in a straight line, directionally or narratively. I'm not going to talk here about the things that happen to them - because that's essentially the whole movie, but COME ON!
Near the end, when the soldier with the message is going through the trenches near the new Hindenburg Line, he keeps trying to get in touch with the commanding officer, and about twenty times in a row, all he hears is, "Oh, he's in the next trench over..." or "He's up there, just a few hundred yards away..." and then "No, I'm the captain, you need the colonel, keep going..." and this is after I've spent over 90 minutes of my life watching this soldier move across dangerous terrain to talk to this guy. It reminded me of the end of every level of "Super Mario Bros." where Mario keeps rescuing a princess and the game text reads, "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" God DAMN IT, I just rescued her from this one, how does this keep happening? And when is this soldier going to reach the guy he's supposed to deliver the damn message to?
Don't get me wrong, it's clear that a LOT of work went in to making this film, and I'm thinking that a TON of technical wizardry was involved, but I wonder whether this film would have so much hype if it weren't designed to look like one seamless shot for two hours, which I know that it can't possibly be. Now I want to watch it again or look online to figure out where the seams are, because they have to be there, and right now I can only think of one spot. That's the double-edged sword that arises from using this technique - it's impressive, sure, but so is any magic trick - but a magic trick done well turns other magicians into people who won't rest until they figure out how the trick is done. My film school training therefore turns me into Penn and Teller on "Fool Us".
But this is all part of my "worry spiral", which starts with me worrying that I haven't seen enough nominated films when Oscar time draws near - then I'll worry that the ones I've seen aren't really worthy, or don't have a chance to win. That's really not a big deal in the end, because I'm going to try to see them all, eventually. But that in turn gives me something else to worry about, the fact that I'm worrying over something so inconsequential is also a cause for concern, and so on....
Also starring George MacKay (last seen in "Defiance"), Dean-Charles Chapman (last seen in "The Commuter"), Andrew Scott (last seen in "Alice Through the Looking Glass"), Richard Madden (last seen in "Cinderella"), Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Benedict Cumberbatch (last heard in "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch"), Daniel Mays (last seen in "A Good Year"), Adrian Scarborough (last seen in "Notes on a Scandal"), Jamie Parker, Michael Jibson (last seen in "Flyboys"), Richard McCabe (last seen in "Goodbye Christopher Robin"), Chris Walley, Nabhaan Rizwan, Michael Cornelius, Pip Carter (last seen in "Spectre"), Andy Apollo, Paul Tinto, Billy Postlethwaite, Gabriel Akuwudike, Spike Leighton, Robert Maaser, Taddeo Kufus, Justin Edwards, John Hollingworth
RATING: 6 out of 10 collapsed bridges
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