1917 Review

The single-take construction is doing something specific: without cuts there is no elision, so distance becomes real, and the walk across a no-man's land of bloated horses and flooded shell holes takes precisely as long as it takes. Deakins solves problems here that most cinematographers would call impossible, above all the Ecoust sequence, a ruined town lit only by descending flares so that shadows swing across walls while the camera runs alongside a man through a burning church.

The handoffs between Steadicam, crane, and vehicle are invisible. George MacKay is a good vessel rather than a rich character, and that is the trade: the film sacrifices interiority to sustain the conceit, and the parade of famous faces appearing for one scene each keeps puncturing the immersion. The plot is a fetch quest by design. But the closing run across an attacking line, soldiers pouring in from the left as he moves perpendicular through them, is one of the images of the decade.