A soldier wakes up in a flowery meadow in the first few seconds of "1917," Sam Mendes' gripping action drama about World War I. To call this image the opening shot isn't quite right, because "1917" contains essentially just one shot, a continuous stream of imagery that flows nearly uninterrupted for two hours. Though we know the film has technically been spliced together, the effect is undetectable (save for a brief cut to black). It's an astonishing achievement from Mendes and his crew, notably editor Lee Smith and cinematographer Roger Deakins.
In fact, the filmmaking takes star billing over the story, written by Mendes with Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Like Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk," Mendes' movie wants to drop you into the middle of war to run, hide and fight along with your fellow soldiers. Both movies succeed admirably, and "1917" has an emotional core that "Dunkirk," in its excitement, forgot to include. Still, this is a movie about sight and sound; heart and soul come second.
That sleeping soldier is Schofield (George MacKay), who has the bad luck to be napping near his buddy Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman). A superior taps Blake for a mission, Blake taps Schofield for a partner, and the two Lance Corporals end up racing across enemy territory to deliver an urgent message to Colonel Mackenzie (a brief but forceful Benedict Cumberbatch). His roughly 1,600 British soldiers are about to walk into a German trap, and Blake's older brother is among them.
