Bloody hell! Even their rats are bigger than ours.

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2020

#13 : 1917

Much was made of the sheer technical achievement of Sam Mendes' World War I movie, presented as one extended take through the Boschian hellscape of the frontlines. And it is an astonishing feat – seamlessly stitched together, Roger Deakins' camerawork fluidly taking in every assault and eerie landscape. But 1917 is an emotional, visceral experience too, George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman putting in excellent, empathetic performances as the soldiers dispatched across No Man's Land to stop thousands of British soldiers walking into a devastating ambush. A frequently harrowing, heart-stoppingly tense cinematic odyssey – and filmmaking at its most immersive.

This is a film I thought I'd already written up, but when I went to include the link to it for #12 in the list, I found that no such write-up exists. Which makes it the rarest of things - a film I actually chose to watch without some list telling me to!

All of which makes it a little hazy in my memory, but I think I remember it well enough to comment on without rewatching it - although Wikipedia did helpfully remind me of some of the details. As Empire sketches out, the plot concerns a message which has to be delivered within a critical timeframe to prevent the deaths of a large number of British troops in France during WWI. Tom (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will (George MacKay) are entrusted with the task, with the added peril that Tom's brother is one of the men who is at risk if the message isn't delivered. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the trip is not an easy one and much happens along the way - telling you any more than that would just spoil all the fun.

A lot of what happens is very well filmed, and that's even before we consider the "one take" thing. It's actually quite obviously not one take because the screen blacks out at one point to denote one of the characters losing consciousness, but you'd never guess it's actually 34 separate shots edited together - I think I spotted four or five potential joins, but even then they were so well done I couldn't be sure. It could easily have proved to be a distraction, both in terms of feeling a bit forced and also distracting you from the story, but it actually works pretty well as a propulsive mechanism to keep things on the move and to keep you engaged. Although you do get distracted thinking "how on earth did they do that as one take?!?" - it may be 34 shots, but for a two hour long film, that still makes the average shot a very long one.

Dean-Charles and George do a lot of heavy lifting in this film and they make it look easy - whilst obviously making it look very hard as well. It's our first visit with George, although I recognised him from Sunshine On Leith (which is great if you've not seen it) but we have met Dean-Charles before in this (which I don't remember) but he's probably best known as Tommen Baratheon in Game Of Thrones, or as the longest serving Billy Elliott in the West End. They've both been working regularly since they were about nine, so they've got a few years under their belts.

And boy do they meet some acting talent on their way here including Mark Strong (our third visit), Andrew Scott (third), Richard Madden (first), Colin Firth (first), Benedict Cumberbatch (second) and Daniel Mays (first), along with a million other faces you recognise without necessarily knowing their names. And, as far as I remember, everyone fits in well - the casting is inspired.

As is, obviously, the direction by Sir Sam Mendes and cinematography by Sir Roger Deakins - two masters of their craft, with Roger winning his second Academy Award (out of SIXTEEN nominations) for his work here. Sam also deserves praise for his work on the screenplay, along with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, working on her feature-film debut - I guess we've all got to start somewhere. The story works well within the context of the "one take" framework and I imagine it would have been very easy to get things very wrong.

The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning for Best Cinematography, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects - losing out to Parasite for Best Film, Director and Original Screenplay. You can obviously argue about "best" anything, but I think it's fair to say that a lot of people will have preferred this film to that one. It's certainly a lot easier to understand what's going on because at its heart, it's a reasonably straightforward war film (but not too simplistic that you can always guess where it's going) but the way it's all presented is very cleverly done and really elevates the source material. 

If you've not seen it, then it's a strong recommendation from me - it's not currently available to stream anywhere, but you can rent it in all the usual places or I'm sure it'll pop up on a free-to-air at some point, so check it out if you stumble across it (but make sure you start at the beginning).

#14 - One with fond memories