The mesmerizing beauty of “1917” is owed to its dedicated perception as a one-shot film. This continuous motion aesthetic is unequivocally a mastercraft of unparalleled editing and cinematography. The concept itself is the key story mechanic, slogging our chum characters along and creating an acute sense of time and setting, directly conveying the desperation of the unfolding drama.
In the way that fiction can capture the essence of a real event, “1917” showcases the utter waste and carnage of this late stage of the war with a fresh perspective mostly uninterested in the minutia of combat, but sounding off its echoes as if the Somme culled yesterday. The haunting emptiness of scarred landscapes, blasted buildings, and strewn corpses drips with a rising, terrible tension that ascends, plateaus, and plummets right back to where the film starts, as if the whole episode—like the conflict itself—was in vain just as we find relief.
“1917” is a simple, visually magnificent instillment of the pure feeling of awe in the presence of excellent film construction. A perfection of the technical triumphs highlighting a microcosm of an epic stage, “1917” is a stand-out work that ranks as a true must see experience.
9/10
As AJ Thinks 