When the film was released in February this year, I watched it on my computer at home. The most interesting thing is that I watched the whole movie, and I didn't feel the most technically powerful "one shot to the end" in this movie. After reading it, I realized it after being reminded by a friend.
At that time, my feeling about this movie was, oh, it's like this, it's a cliché but good-looking hero story, nothing special, the photography is beautiful, and the sense of substitution is very strong.
After rewatching it on the big screen, I have a different feeling. Sure enough, the movie belongs to the theater.
sense of play
Looking at the process of 1917, it was like playing a war game. The audience follows the point of view of the two protagonists to experience the cruelty of war.
Only this time it was the director holding the gamepad.
The audience and the protagonist become NPCs. Walking into the cinema, we were all manipulated to feel the afterimages of the 1917 war.
We are placed in the same position as the protagonist of the film, that is, we do not know what will happen in the next moment: we do not know where there will be German troops in ambush, and we do not know where there will be bombs to be detonated. We are taken back to the battlefields of more than a hundred years ago by the movies, as nervous, scared and worried as they are.
The 360-degree surround lens is not only used as a point of view switch during dialogue, but more importantly, the constantly rotating lens brings the restoration of the entire battlefield. The protagonist is also like the NPC of the game, exploring in an unknown space.
The sense of horror in the movie comes from the restoration of the real scene, the explosions, corpses, and bullets that appear from time to time.
Although it is a pseudo-one shot to the end, because the protagonist is constantly moving and the scene is constantly switching, the observation and boring feeling brought by the long shot itself are eliminated. Compared with traditional long-shot performances, movies such as "Flowers on the Sea" and "Roadside Picnic", long-shots bring a sense of alienation to the audience. We seem to be off-screen, observing and watching the scenes on the screen. In 1917, the long shots in motion create a sense of immersion.
But what exactly can such a powerful immersion bring?
Restore reality and feel the war. Is it to make the audience realize the cruelty of war again, so as to return to reflection? Or, this is just a realistic game, feel the spectacle, the excitement, the movie has become an experience, and the fun is over?
Will the excessive pursuit of truth lead to a kind of unreality? This is a question worth thinking about.
messenger of god
During both viewings, I was very puzzled by the scene where Scott accidentally hides in a semi-basement and meets a French girl and a baby while he is being tracked by the Germans.
A ruined city occupied by the Germans, there are still French surviving in the basement?
As the only female figures in war movies, teenage girls and babies?
Unreasonable plot settings. Although, from a plot point of view, the protagonist needs to have a process of accumulating and resting before the final outbreak. When there is a fall, there can be a rise.
Perhaps, the canned food and milk sent by the French girls and babies who took refuge were to highlight the human side of the war, and we were friends. France and Great Britain, alliance, we are the anti-aggressor, we are the side of justice. So in this cruel war, we saw the light of humanity, Scott is no longer a soldier, more importantly, he is a kind and just person. (Finally, Scott, who was under the tree, also took out pictures of his family. I don’t know if it was his wife and daughter or mother and sister, but they must all be his favorite people, echoing the French girl he met before?)
Is it just that?
While discussing the irrationality of this plot with a friend, another interpretation came to my mind.
When he arrived in the small town, Scott looked at the ruins in the fire.
Then, he miraculously met the virgin and the baby in the ruins.
Virgin Maria and the Baby Christ
The Adoration of the Three Magis
Looking for a painting at random, I can still see some similarities between the two.
The photography in the basement scene is very oily chiaroscuro, or baroque, where the surroundings are dark, but the protagonists are bright.
Scott, the wise man who came to worship, met the Virgin and the Holy Child in the ruins, and offered all his food supplies, as well as the gift that the baby needs most at this moment: milk.
After a short nap, Scott became a messenger of God on a mission to save thousands of his fellow citizens.
In the end, he was like a god, and the bullets were detoured, and he became a saint.
Two runs, one miraculously eluding the Germans, reached his compatriot.
In the other, he also miraculously avoided the fire and completed his mission.
After the militant colonel received Scott's letter, the armistice mission that should have gone awry (as can be seen from the reminder of the officers he met on the way before: some people just want to fight) was successfully carried out. .
This also confirmed his divine help once again.
Why did the belligerent colonel decide to truce after the first wave of attacks had already begun? Did he regain his sanity and decide to obey, or was he moved by Scott's spirit?
neither.
Maybe it's just God's will that cannot be defied.
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