When I walked in to see 1917 I expected another boring, drawn-out war film like Dunkirk or Hacksaw Ridge; instead I found a new film to fixate on for the next week. Finding a film as absolutely phenomenal as 1917 is hard to come by with the state of the film industry at the moment. Movies are starting to become mass produced, with less and less heart and soul as time goes by (the MCU film series comes to mind). 1917 is the fresh breath of cool air that none of us knew we needed.

The premise of 1917 is two young men with hazy backstories that have to venture across enemy lines to deliver a message that could save thousands. The premise of the movie barely holds a candle to the entirety of the film. The journey itself makes sure you know just how horrific war is, while still showing you the beauty that lies deeply buried underneath it all and within humans. Plenty of sub plots are opened up and excellently resolved, usually without the happy ending you’d find in a boring soulless film. This film is realistic without being as boring as reality and only showing us the more profound aspects of war. 1917 makes sure to show you what you want to see without distracting from the story itself. Truly a film of pleasant contradictions.

The entire film is formatted to appear as if it was all in one shot. This decision sounds like a pointless gimmick, but the directors specifically made this choice to make sure that the audience does not miss a single moment of this story all in real time. The score of the film is specifically designed to be faint so we do not lose the sense of reality, yet it still succeeds to be subconsciously noticeable so it reinforces the emotional background to some scenes. In terms of emotion this film is designed to make you feel every single emotion that the lead characters are feeling, when they feel it, at all time. The directors of this film absolutely succeed.

Immersion is an almost completely ignored trait in most movies\; only being popularized by the incredibly uncomfortable “first person perspective” films of the last few years which do this poorly. To be pulled in and enticed by a film, to truly feel like you’re apart of the world, to feel as if you are the characters on the screen despite being nothing like them is a magical experience. I cannot recommend this groundbreaking film enough.