What happened to the Sam Mendes, from works of substance like 'American Beauty' and 'Road to Perdition' to somewhat juvenile, empty of soul films like '1917', where deep characters and real emotions are subverted for theme rides. Here, of all subjects to use for a theme ride, "the Great War" is a vehicle for an action adventure, fantasy-esque quest, that not only sheds little about the horrific war itself, but sanitises the sacrifice of young men by a corrupt elite on both sides of the war, who profited heavily from their demise. But you might say, "Elcid, this is a popcorn action flick, you got to switch off your brain mate, enjoy the ride...", yet even for mindless action, I never felt at the edge of my seat, and all of the meant-to-be tense and gripping scenes felt forced and contrived, and you could see the actors reacting to cues rather then immersed into Sam's world of make believe. There are two truly great scenes in 'Children of Men' (Alfonso Cuarón), both near the beginning and near the end, where the action takes place in one shot, and here the veracity of both the characters and their environment is so powerful that you truly feel immersed and haunted by the scenes. In interviews, Mendes says he was inspired by these scenes, but it seems by trying to emulate them, he has missed a trick - to justify the story within them! Therefore it feels like you are watching someone else play a video game, where the main protagonist has 9 Lives and reaches number 8 before he succeeds to the final level boss - an underwhelming encounter with Benedict Cumberbiatch (sic) who says "foff" and the audience foff too, to recollect on a lost 2 hours. The score by Thomas Newman is also misplaced and passé - think a Hans Zimmer rendition of Lord of the Rings'. The only redeeming feature is the cinematography by Roger Deakins, yet even here, it inevitably draws comparison to the superior cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki ('Children of Men'), and whilst it is interesting to purely admire the technical achievement and continuous mis-en-scene in one shot (with hidden cuts), I think such a scheme ultimately ends up stealing the emotional veracity from the characters since we never really get up close and personal to them to see their eyes - their windows to the soul. The distance makes for a mute joy ride, and it is a shame as rather then free Deakins to bring out the best in the visuals, the one-shot idea has constrained him. There is to my knowledge only two great audio-visual works on WW1 and they are Blackadder Goes Forth (TV Series) and 'Paths of Glory' (Kubrick), alongside great films about all wars, from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Apocalypse Now', 'Catch 22', 'Salvador', 'The Battle of Algiers', to name but a few.
Review of 1917
