1917

Una curvilínea exhibición cinematográfica con impresionantes decorados, ritmos palpitantes y detalles cinéfilos (lo que más me gustó fue la entrada de Mark Strong a escena). Válido para la primera mitad. En la segunda, empiezan a suceder cosas menos comprensibles y todo se convierte en un paso forzado hacia la conclusión de la historia. Nada sorprende en la trama y solo confirma la excesiva simplicidad y transparencia del tema, que se basa en símbolos de pensamiento tópicos (el sacrificio por un fin superior, la leche, sin hervir? para un niño). Está lejos de ser la filosofía que pretende ser. Pero los efectos visuales son realmente geniales. Incluso Thomas Newman, fuera de su zona de confort, fue una delicia. Verla en otro lugar que no sea el cine sería aberrante. Igual que en su día Gravity. (09.03.2020)

1917 es un alarde de capacidad técnica y habilidades cinematográficas, por lo que merece todos esos Oscars que ganó, pero por lo demás su temática apenas da para una atracción del parque temático de Universal Studios. La escena en la que el soldado se refugia con la bella francesa era un tópico en los años sesenta del siglo pasado, y no digamos hoy... (11.12.2021)

I think that Sam Mendes was aiming for the Oscar here, I don’t know why there aren’t more films about the First World War, but it’s probably because most of the time the soldiers were battling boredom in the trenches rather thanfighting for territory on the ground. Sam Mendes, however, went a bit too far here, replacing filmmaking with an attempt at absolute realism. The illusion that everything is a single long shot makes the scenes look remarkably surreal. It all starts with the crash of a German plane into a dilapidated barn, continues with ruins of the town illuminated by flares and ends directly in the trenches, a few seconds before running into the turmoil ofbattle. I was bating my breath, fascinated by the fabricated scenes, and enjoyed one of the best war films made in the last few years. The trio of good old British actors (Firth, Cumberbatch, Strong) is the icing on the cake, which will draw you into the depicted events of the war and remind you that it is “only” a film. (17.02.2020)

The cinematography was worked out to a monomaniacal degree of detail (all those trenches strewn with corpses, barbed wire and razed, burning cities), the mise-en-scene is composed masterfully and the special effects are fantastic but don’t seek to draw attention to themselves, nor are they in the audience’s face. In short, I’ve never before seen such production values in any film whose subject is World War I. And then there’s Mendes’s sheer virtuosity, captivating camera equilibristics, and (from the meeting with the young French woman) the requisite rush of emotions. I consider it a sad error in judgment on the part of the Academy that it preferred the shallow Parasite over this masterpiece. (21.03.2020)

1917 will be talked about as the war film that was shot in one take. Which it isn't, but we all know that, and I don't feel like anyone should mind. However, it would be a big mistake to just look at it as a technically perfect film where Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins fool around with the camera. The latter is, of course, amazing; 1917 looks like a computer game, with the camera managing to pan around the characters during dialogue, crawling along with them across the battlefield with cameraman looking for the craziest but still functional angles from which to capture everything. But the main star here is still Mendes as the narrator, who manages to get under the skin of both the characters and the audience in that "one shot". Initially, cold and distant, and like one of the soldiers, he treats the whole mission as just an order to be carried out, hoping to survive. Gradually, however, he begins to acknowledge the importance of the mission and very powerful and emotional scenes subtly, but eventually very intensely, surface. And for example the whole passage in the burning village or the very end are incredibly powerful moments. The film doesn't just look great. It's great throughout. (18.02.2020)