This film gave me a stress headache, so you know it was good.

1917 follows two soldiers who have to get a letter to the front line during the First World War to stop an attack that is going to happen that will put thousands of peoples’ lives at risk because it is a trap.

This whole movie is shot as if it is one continuous longshot so it’s very interesting for me as someone who studied film for many years to look for those moments that are clearly cuts but are cleverly put in in a way that makes you think that the shot has never ended. It’s incredibly well done and out of the whole film I only spotted two or three moments that were clear cuts that were obvious to the naked eye.

This movie encapsulates the Great War and what the soldiers went through. It was fascinating to see the differences between where the soldiers began and how they were sleeping in a field and seemed very chill and relaxed, to when the soldier that made it is on the front line and you see all of these bodies cut up and blown up and burned from the enemy attackers, and just how brutal it is to see the Captain crying because of his men going over and him knowing that he might die. It was so, so gut wrenching because I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in that moment.

The scene that really took me by surprise and shocked me the most was the No Mans Land scene. Not only is it incredibly tense and scary but the graphic nature of it was so incredible. There were moments that made my skin crawl with how horrible it was, all of the bodies and horses strewn across the open field, every time they stood in a puddle and made a noise I winced at the thought that someone might hear them, and the barbed wire looking so harsh against the skyline. It was horrible to see but also so incredible to think about the amount of detail and effort that was put into just one scene of the film. If you think that scene is good you have to see it for the rest too, the scene with a burning buildings absolutely blew me away because it looked incredible.

This film had me gasping, had me screaming, had me covering my eyes, it had me shook to my core and each moment just kept building and building and building. It was so good and I don’t say that about movies much, war films have such a special place in peoples’ hearts because they’re based on true stories and to see what these men might have gone through play out in front of you on the big screen is absolutely insane because you just can’t imagine it yourself unless you’re there. You just can’t believe what they went through and what they sacrificed for us to be able to have the lives that we do today.

I highly, highly recommend this film because it’s so masterful. It’s an absolutely incredibly made piece of art and really encapsulates that feeling of terror and fear and suspense and everything else that comes with war, as well as the feeling of hope and clarity and the promise of a better tomorrow too. I absolutely adore it and it’s definitely a movie that I would happily watch again and encourage so many people to watch too. I’m not a big fan of period pieces but I have really got into war films and period films recently and this is definitely at the top of my list.

What do you think of 1917?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding