1917 : Tuesday 14th January 2020.

'1917' which I saw this week is an MA15+ Rated First World War film Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written for the screen by Sam Mendes, based on a 'fragment' of an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes, who was a Trinidad and Tobago novelist and short-story writer who lived from 1897 until 1991 and who served in the 1st Rifle Brigade during WWI and fought for two years in Flanders, along the Belgian Front. He was awarded a Military Medal for distinguishing himself on the battlefield. Sam Mendes is of course the highly acclaimed English Director of film and stage whose previous film making credits include 'American Beauty', 'Road to Perdition', 'Jarhead', 'Revolutionary Road', and the two most recent Bond releases 'Skyfall' and 'Spectre'. This film was released in the US on Christmas Day, and in Australia and the UK last week, has received widespread critical acclaim, and has so far raked up 72 awards wins and another 142 nominations from around the awards and festivals circuit, with many of those nominations still awaiting a final outcome. The film cost US$90M to make, and has so far grossed US$72M, and is lensed by the multi-award winning and nominated Roger Deakins and scored by the equally multi-award winning and nominated Thomas Newman.

It is 6th April 1917 - at the height of the First World War in northern France, and two young British soldiers, Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are given a seemingly impossible mission by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) to personally deliver a hand written message to a Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) of the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment which will warn of an ambush of some sixteen hundred British troops at the hands of the German Army in a calculated attack soon after the German tactical retreat to the new Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich. Included in those 1,600 men is Blake's older brother, Lieutenant Joseph Blake (Richard Madden).

The two young soldiers have no alternative but to accept their mission, which is expected to take them about eight hours on foot across enemy lines. And so Schofield and Blake cross no man's land and reach the now abandoned original German trenches. Scouring the bunkers for any signs of life, or food, it turns out that the myriad of underground tunnels contain tripwires, which a rat scavenging for scraps of food in the darkness, triggers. The ensuing explosion almost kills Schofield who is buried under rocks, rubble and dust, but Blake digs him out and leads him temporarily blinded out of the collapsing bunkers to safety.

The pair arrive at an abandoned destroyed farmhouse, where they witness a dogfight in the skies nearby involving two British aircraft and one German. The German plane plunges into the farm and explodes. Schofield and Blake attempt to save the partially burned pilot by pulling him out of the cockpit with his legs on fire. Schofield proposes they mercy kill him, but Blake has Schofield instead fetch water for the pilot to drink. Meanwhile, the pilot stabs Blake in the stomach, and is promptly shot dead by Schofield, who comforts Blake as he dies, promising to complete the mission, find his brother, and write to his mother saying he loves her.

Schofield is picked up by a passing British unit led by Captain Smith (Mark Strong) who lets him ride in the back of a troop carrier. A destroyed bridge near the bombed-out village, Ecoust-Saint-Mein, prevents the British lorries from crossing, meaning they must make a six mile detour. Schofield racing against the clock decides to go it alone and bids Captain Smith farewell. Smith offers some advice to Schofield that when he presents the letter to Mackenzie he does so in front of several witnesses, as some men just like to fight!

So Schofield crosses a canal alone by clinging on to the remnants of the bridge. He immediately comes under fire from a German sniper, but manages to get across the canal and returning fire takes out the sniper perched in the upper floor of a tall building, only to be knocked out by a ricocheting bullet and falling backwards down some steps.

Schofield comes round at night, with the back of his head all bloodied, but proceeds on. Fired upon by a chasing German soldier through the bombed out streets and buildings of Ecoust, Schofield stumbles into the dimly lit hiding place of a French woman Lauri (Claire Duburcq) with an infant. Recognising that they are both allies of each other, she tends to his head wound, and he leaves fresh cows milk he found at the abandoned farm earlier in the day for the infant and his own rations for her. Continuing his mission through the rubble and burning buildings all around him, Schofield is twice discovered by German soldiers. He strangles one of them and escapes under gunfire by jumping into a raging river of white water and fast flowing rapids. Eventually, rising to the surface, he is thrust over a waterfall into more steady flowing waters below where he clings to a log to catch his breath while he is carried down stream.

Schofield reaches an embankment of the river which is blocked by a fallen tree and numerous dead bodies floating in the river trapped in front of the downed tree trunk. He scrambles across the dead bodies to clamber up the shoreline, where he collapses sobbing and exhausted. In the distance he can hear the faint sound of someone singing. He ventures forth, and comes across a battalion of soldiers all sitting on the ground intently listening to a single fellow soldier singing a ballad.

After the singing stops, the soldiers all stand up and recognising that Schofield is not one of their own, asks him if he's alright, judging by his drenched uniform and decidedly dishevelled appearance. He responds by asking which regiment they are, and they reply the Devons . . . the ones he is looking for.

Failing to stop the start of the attack, he scours through the dug out trenches searching for Mackenzie's whereabouts. Told he is still 300 yards away along a two man wide at best trench, he climbs over the top of the trench and sprints across the battlefield as the charging British infantry are bombarded by a barrage of German artillery.

He ultimately forces his way into meeting the commander of the battalion, Colonel Mackenzie, and hands him the note from General Erinmore. After some bluster and initially being dismissed by the Colonel, Schofield says that the Germans have been planning this attack for months, at which point the attack is called off and the men are ordered to stand down.

Schofield then goes in search of Joseph and is directed to the infirmary tent, and who was among the first attack wave but is unhurt. He delivers the news of his younger brothers death. Joseph is saddened by the news, but thanks Schofield for his efforts. Schofield asks to write to Blake's mother to inform her about his heroism, to which Joseph agrees. Joseph tells him to go to the mess tent to get something to eat. Instead, Schofield walks away and sits under a nearby tree, able to rest at last after completing his mission. From his pocket he pulls several photographs revealing he has two young daughters and a wife at home waiting for him to return safely.

'1917' is a film that begs to be seen on the big screen. It is a truly immersive cinematic experience that lensman Roger Deakins delivers with his seemingly one take approach as the camera ducks, dives and weaves from open countryside, to the claustrophobia of underground bunkers, to the tight squeeze of the trenches, through bombed out towns and down raging torrents of rivers as our two heroes of this piece dodge bombs, mortars, bullets and human remains to realise their mission. As the first truly mechanised war in human history, this is a simple story, deftly and very impressively told by Sam Mendes that does not over complicate war but serves as a timely reminder of the horrors of war and the pain, suffering and devastation that man can inflict on his fellow man. Tense, emotional, moving and gripping all at once '1917' easily stands up there with Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' for its set design, production values, focus on authenticity, visceral storytelling, action sequences and cinematography, not to mention the two relatively unknown lead Actors who won't be so unknown for much longer and the strong cast of support Actors in various cameo roles. Despite some flaws in its storytelling and a stretching of the imagination in a few places, '1917' is a must see at a movie theatre and for followers of the genre, as it redefines the scope and scale of the depiction of trench warfare and the realities of open armed combat in the last one hundred years for the 21st Century.

'1917' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-