1917 (2020) - Matter Of Time!

★★★☆☆

As the title suggests, the event takes place in year 1917 during the period of the First World War, where two British soldiers are ordered to deliver a call-off-attack message to their front line forces to stop them from walking into a trap set by the German Army. The film's shot in seemingly one single long take, but I doubt it. There got to be some editing going on to make it up, but whether or not doesn't really matter. What's well done about it is, the one-long-take gimmick doesn't seem to distract viewers' attention to what's going on with the plotline and characters, even though the story's not strong enough to stand and move, and the characters are just paper thin!

Compared with those one-take full length features that generally appear to be rather showy and nauseous, '1917' is relatively low profile with its camera work. Meaning it would not distract you from seeing what's going on there, but the problem is, what's going on doesn't seem to get me after all. I do feel involved watching them get into the dangerous and accomplish their mission, but I don't feel moved or inspired after watching. I guess that's due to the drawback of adopting one-long-shot in a film, which is bound to miss other perspectives to the event because the camera has to always follow the main characters. To be fair, '1917' is technically terrific. It's a heart-pounding film mainly because of its 'contemporary' score. The plot however, is quite care-free overall, despite something considered a bit shocking half way through!

Buddha said, it's better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. We human have never learned nonetheless. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been wars, massacres, genocides, homicides or stuff. We never will, I guess, because we always tend to put the blame on others and see them as problems to be wiped out. We don't realize that we ourselves are the problem! Presumably the ugly side of human history is going to repeat itself over and again! So would there be the Third World War? Unfortunately yes, matter of time!