Excuse a few impressions after having watched 1917 enough times to be able to switch off (most) emotions and finally to be able to think about it. On a personal note, it is the first time that I watched a war movie several times over a few days...Aside from all the coverage about the truly astonishing camerawork and overall concept, or the absolutely vast scale of the set design, rehearsals, lighting and its simulations, continuity challenges etc. etc. ... there are a number of things that IMHO make 1917 truly stand out.It is what it does NOT do, and it doesn't do those things in such subdued manner that we might take it all for granted - until we realize: hang on, this had to be actually made into a film, it had to work as a film.Character development? Impossible for vast majority of characters we encounter. We have a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes with them - and they are then gone forever. This, in itself, has a heck of an emotional charge. We ascertain as much as we can about them based on maybe a few or just one sentences. The script is remarkable how much it says about someone and/or something in so few fleeting words. Even within those few seconds or words, it manages to depict characters ranging from abhorrent selfishness to thinly veiled racism to utter despair to heartbreaking empathy and selflessness.There is no external information fed into the personal Universe of the two soldiers we follow. No aerial shots, nothing that gives any insight into their environment beyond what they/we can see. It is claustrophobic in that sense, despite the fact that it mostly occurs in vast, harrowing, otherworldly spaces instead of physically closed spaces.There is no "look how amazing we are" moment where they would rub in our face their truly astonishing technical achievements. Even the impossible-looking camera handling is there to always be in service of the story, instead of doing crazy trickery just to show off. Even when the perhaps most dramatic camera movements are employed during the night-time sequence, it all remains absolutely in the service of the story. In many ways, this actually makes some viewers take things for granted because things are kept so natural - until the coin drops that, hang on, this had to be filmed by people and gizmos holding a camera...There is no wall-to-wall, typical, war movie soundtrack stuff. There is no "you must cry, now, because this is, right now, emotional" musical moment. When it has to achieve that, it does it with so achingly economical means that one has to be a sociopath not to react to it emotionally. Thomas Newman is a veritable genius, as usual, and in this film, too, he can go from a few faint sound effects of almost-silence to heart achingly simple but effective few piano notes to full-blown towering sound. When latter happens, and only perhaps once in the entire film, and it is suitably heroic, it is like all the tensions built up over almost two hours break down all the walls - and we have an astonishing coupling of visuals with sky-shattering music.Well, yes, almost no CGI. The largest lighting rig Deakins ever devised was replaced by something else via digital wizardry, but apart from that (and the blending of the different scenes into a single shot-looking journey), there is no 'obvious' trickery employed.The scenes shot in daylight are not over-processed in post-production for extra effect. Natural light looks like natural light, and for continuity people this had to be a nightmare. Even with the overcast murky scenes, we take for granted just how much lighting conditions change - ask any photographer... let alone film maker. Considering how many takes they had to often do, even with all the rehearsals, it's astonishing how seamlessly it is all combined.It does NOT show the horror of that war in ways that other war movies do it. The horror does not come from big battle scenes with naturalistic and anatomically accurate portrayals of how that war minces down human bodies. This is no Saving Private Ryan opening scene or anything 'traditional' we may think of instantly. The only thing that comes close to some scenes in 1917 are some similarly subdued and restrained, but all the more effective, sequences in The Killing Fields by Roland Joffe, where the main character escapes the camp and crawls through the horrific wasteland. In this film, everything we know about that war comes often from the tiny details (a hand in the mud as the camera glides over the rim of the crater), or from the overall feel of a vast landscape - there is no "look there!!" moment, the camera lets us pick out the horrific details.Ah well. I'd better stop :)... excuse the rant, but still just astonished by this thing. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2u68rTq
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