1917

Taistelulähetit – 1917 / 1917.
    GB / US © 2019 Storyteller Distribution Co., LLC / NR 1917 Film Holding. PC: Neal Street Productions for DreamWorks Pictures in association with New Republic Pictures. P: Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall, Brian Oliver. EX: Jeb Brody, Oleg Petrov, Ignacio Salazar-Simpson, Ricardo Marco Budé.
    D: Sam Mendes. SC: Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Cin: Roger Deakins – colour – 1, 90:1 (IMAX), 2,39:1 – source format: ARRIRAW4,5K – master format: 4K – release format: D-Cinema.
PD: Dennis Gassner. AD: Simon Elsley, Elaine Kusmishko, Rod McLean, Niall Moroney, Stephen Swain, Robert Voysey (construction foreman). Set dec: Lee Sandales. Cost: David Crossman, Jacqueline Durran. Hair & makeup: Doone Forsyth. SFX: Alicia Davies, Dominic Tuohy. VFX: Sona Pak – MPC – Cheap Shot. M: Thomas Newman. S: Oliver Tarney. ED: Lee Smith. Casting: Nina Gold.
    C: George MacKay (Lance Corporal Schofield), Dean-Charles Chapman (Lance Corporal Blake), Mark Strong (Captain Smith), Andrew Scott (Lieutenant Leslie), Richard Madden (Lieutenant Joseph Blake), Claire Duburcq (Lauri), Colin Firth (General Erinmore), Benedict Cumberbatch (Colonel MacKenzie).
    Filming and production: England and Scotland. For instance in Salisbury Plains, Wiltshire. 1 April 2019 – 7 June 2019.
    119 min
    UK Royal Command Performance: 4 Dec 2019.
    Finnish premiere: 24 Jan 2020 – released by Nordisk Film – Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Jaana Wiik / Jani Kyllönen.
    IMAX screening at Finnkino Itis, IMAX® Premium, Helsinki, 25 Jan 2020.

Tagline: "Time is the enemy".

IMDb capsule: "Two young British soldiers during the First World War are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men, and one of the soldiers' brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap."

Official synopsis: "Sam Mendes, the Oscar®-winning director of Skyfall, Spectre and American Beauty, brings his singular vision to his World War I epic, 1917."

"At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them."

"1917 is directed by Sam Mendes, who wrote the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Showtime’s Penny Dreadful). The film is produced by Mendes and Pippa Harris (co-executive producer, Revolutionary Road; executive producer, Away We Go) for their Neal Street Productions, Jayne-Ann Tenggren (co-producer, The Rhythm Section; associate producer, Spectre), Callum McDougall (executive producer, Mary Poppins Returns, Skyfall) and Brian Oliver (executive producer, Rocketman; Black Swan)."

"The film is produced by Neal Street Productions for DreamWorks Pictures in association with New Republic Pictures. Universal Pictures will release the film domestically in limited release on December 25, 2019 and wide on January 10, 2020. Universal and Amblin Partners will distribute the film internationally, with eOne distributing on behalf of Amblin in the U.K."

AA: In tribute to his grandfather, Sam Mendes has created a memorial film to the First World War. To me it appears as a parallel enterprise to Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old. Both films are ambitious and experimental super-productions that help us see the much discussed war in a new way.

Both are created around a stunning special effect. Jackson created his vision from vintage propaganda footage at the Imperial War Museum united seamlessly via digital manipulation. Mendes has produced a quasi "single shot" movie, rare in feature films anyway, and unique in a project of such epic scope.

1917 is a magnificent spectacle, focusing on a single storyline that offers an epic cross-section of the war theatre near the Hindenburg Line on the Western Front. Its classical storytelling concept dates back to D. W. Griffith's "race to the rescue" films and Alfred Hitchcock's philosophy of suspense.

There is a crucial difference, however: Griffith and Hitchcock's films were built on parallel montage. Mendes's "single shot" concept eschews montage altogether. The film is like a digital game blown up to an IMAX screen, a relentless nightmare where there is an enemy worse than Germans – time. I also kept thinking about films such as Speed and Lola rennt. Among war films, there is an affinity with Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan which is also about a single-minded pursuit to save a surviving brother.

It's great, but in my opinion both Jackson and Mendes miss the point – the point of the First World War.

It was the first war in Europe with industrial scale slaughter (for instance in Verdun and Somme). Traditional fiction was powerless to depict that. Griffith understood this when he visited the battlefields and stated that no good drama can be made of a war like this.

Massive amounts of newsreels were shot, and I have seen dozens of hours of them during 2014–2018 in the heritage festivals of Pordenone and Bologna. I agree with the historian Marc Ferro that these "authentic" films fail to convey the reality of the war.

Several fiction films from Abel Gance's J'accuse to Joseph Loseys' King & Country managed that very powerfully, and special mention goes deservedly to films like The Big Parade, All Quiet on the Western Front, Les Croix de bois and Paths of Glory.

While Jackson and Mendes clearly know what they are talking about, their films fail to convey the horror of the total war. Unconsciously they revert to old-fashioned ideals of glory – the very ideals which were demolished in WWI.

...

I visited the magnificent Finnkino Itis cinema for the first time and was very impressed by the IMAX cinema where 1917 was screened and its dedicated staff. This movie is not being screened in the legendary IMAX super format that was established in 1970, but a great digital projection was seen on a huge screen in an exemplary cinema.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA:

On April 6, 1917, during the First World War, Aerial reconnaissance has observed that the German army, which have pulled back from a sector of the Western Front in the north of France, are not in retreat but have made a tactical withdrawal to their new Hindenburg Line, where they are waiting to overwhelm the British with artillery. In the British-controlled trenches, with field telephone lines cut, two young British soldiers, Lance Corporals Will Schofield and Tom Blake, are ordered by General Erinmore to hand-deliver a message to the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, calling off their planned attack, which will cost the lives of 1,600 men including Blake's brother Lieutenant Joseph Blake.

Schofield and Blake cross no man's land to reach the abandoned German trenches. The soldiers find that the Germans had constructed and abandoned underground barracks. Just as they discover a booby-trap tripwire, a rat triggers it. The ensuing explosion almost kills Schofield, but Blake saves him. They arrive at an abandoned farmhouse, where they witness a German plane being shot down in a dogfight. Schofield and Blake save the burned pilot, who stabs Blake and is shot dead by Schofield. Schofield comforts Blake as he dies, promising to complete the mission. Schofield is then picked up by a passing British unit.

A destroyed bridge near the bombed-out village of Écoust-Saint-Mein prevents the British lorries from crossing, so Schofield crosses alone on the remnants of the bridge. Attacked by a German sniper across the river, Schofield tracks down and kills the sniper, only to be knocked out by a ricocheting bullet. Schofield regains consciousness later that night and stumbles into the hiding place of a French woman with an infant. She treats his wounds and he gives her his canned food and his canteen filled with milk from the farm. Continuing, Schofield is chased by German soldiers, but escapes by jumping into a river. In the morning, Schofield reaches the 2nd Devons just before the British attack begins.

After realising that the trenches are too full of soldiers for him to make it to the commander in time, Schofield sprints across the battlefield, just as the British infantry begin their charge and are bombarded by German artillery. Schofield forces his way into meeting the commander, Colonel McKenzie, and the attack is called off. Schofield then locates Joseph who was among the first attacking wave but is unhurt. Joseph is saddened on learning of his brother's death, but thanks Schofield for his efforts. Schofield asks to write to Blake's mother to tell her about Blake's heroics, to which Joseph agrees. Schofield walks away and sits under a nearby tree, and looks at photos of his two young daughters and his wife.