'1917' Is Gripping, Visceral And Strangely Beautiful
Sam Mendes' technique — stringing together a series of long takes to seem continuous, as if the story's events unfold in real time — makes for a "wholly absorbing cinematic experience."
World War I was a low-tech / high-tech conflict, "advancing" over four grinding years from horse-drawn carts and bayonets to slaughter via airplane, tank, machine gun, and poison gas. Sam Mendes's is a low-tech / high-tech movie, a harrowing quest by two British soldiers across nine miles of contested France to deliver a lifesaving message. The urgency of its plot is brilliantly matched to a formal gimmick: is comprised of a small number of long takes
