Watching: 1917

Our first film of 2020 was Sam Mendes's World War 1 epic 1917. Taking place within a single 24-hour period, 1917 follows two young lance-corporals sent across enemy territory with an urgent dispatch for a unit nine miles away who are poised to launch an attack which will find them walking into a German trap. The journey leads them across No Man's Land, through the trenches the Germans have abandoned, falling back in order to lure the Allied forces to attack, and through devastated countryside. Shot in a way that mimics a single shot, tracking the men's progress, it's absolutely stunning as a film, somehow managing to find something almost beautiful in its depiction of a ravaged and sometimes horrific landscape. George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman are excellent as the two lance-corporals, with brief supporting appearances from a whole host of Famous British Character Actors (Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch...) and the film mixes the quiet tension of their journey with sudden and shocking moments of action. It's not at all a cheerful film, but it is a very good one and deserves the awards it will almost certainly win. (Obviously, it also doesn't come anywhere near passing the Bechdel test, but that's not really surprising given the setting.)