1917

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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“1917” won big at the Golden Globes. Sandra Bullock closed out the evening by presenting the last award of the night, best motion picture drama, which went to “1917.” The WWI drama beat out “The Irishman,” “Joker,” “Marriage Story” and “The Two Popes.”

Directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes (“Skyfall,” “American Beauty”), “1917” is a story set during World War One.

In it, two young British soldiers are given a mission of crossing enemy lines to hand-deliver a message that the Germans are setting a trap for the 2nd Battalion. If they don’t get through, the lives of 1,600 troops are in jeopardy. The duo’s life-and-death attempt to carry out this assignment is the gist of the movie.

The film is based in accounts of the war told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather. That gives “1917” a sounds-like-the-truth verisimilitude sometimes times lost in historical dramas. You’ll share the trepidation and sense of danger as the two soldiers cross No Man’s Land, reach the German front, encounter the abandoned trenches, encounter booby-traps, and dodge enemy snipers.

The plight of the two soldiers – Lance Corporal William Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) – will grab you heart and squeeze it till tears fill your eyes.

The supporting cast includes Mark Strong, Richard Madden, Andrew Scott, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

“1917” is playing its war games this week at Tropic Cinema.

Mendes delivers a high-tension war film that succeeds in pinning you to your seat. He tells the story in one continuous take, the camera at their side every slog of the journey.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s 2014 Oscar-winner “Birdman” was constructed to resemble a film created via one long continuous shot. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 “Rope” did the same thing. And 2002’s “Russian Ark” set the standard for this cinematic gimmick. But Mendes and his cinematographer Roger Deakins deserve credit for this technical achievement.

“I felt this movie should be told in real time,” says Mendes. “Every step of the journey, breathing every breath with these men felt integral and there is no better way to tell this story than with one continuous shot.”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com