1917

"Suspension of disbelief"
'The temporary acceptance as believable of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible. This is usually to allow an audience to appreciate works of literature or drama that are exploring unusual ideas'. (Phrases.org)

Corporals Schofield (George Mackay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are summoned from a brief respite in the sun to see the general.  He needs a message taken urgently to a unit which has orders to attack the Germans at dawn, assuming the enemy are retreating, but now there's new intelligence showing it's all a trap.  If the attack goes ahead 1600 men will be massacred, including Blake's brother.

The young soldiers are told there are no Germans between their start point and the colonel they are seeking, but, as the more world weary Schofield points out, if that's true then which have they been given grenades to take with them?  He proposes caution and not leaving until dusk.  But Blake is insistent.  His brother is one of the 1600 and for him it's personal.

They set off across a muddy, cratered, body strewn, desolate landscape, soon filthy, always afraid.  The German trenches they come to are empty (and far better equipped than their own hovels), but still dangerous.  The mission quickly runs into a string of obstacles and incidents that slow them down, and eventually result in Schofield having to complete the mission on his own.  And things get more and more difficult from there.  Fights, falls, explosions and an unanticipated swimming session.  A baby.  And rats.  Lots of rats.

It's stunningly filmed, long single shots following our protagonists through every agonising moment, the experience up close and personal.  Some heavy handed strings as they entered the first line of German trenches suggested the soundtrack might prove intrusive, but from then on it's the perfect accompaniment, helping to ramp up the tension and enhancing the often spectacular images.

Mackay carries the bulk of the movie and he's superb.  His Schofield is hardened, determined, compassionate and partly dead inside.  He'll be a star for decades to come.

There are several weel kent faces popping up in cameo roles, the best by far being Andrew Scott's wonderfully cynical lieutenant showing them where the lads can get out through the barbed wire, telling them to go past the dead horses, with the bonus that the stench will guide them back if they get into trouble.

But I return to my opening paragraph.  A film that goes to such lengths to accurately portray the horrors of war surely lives and dies by maintaining the viewer's belief in that reality.  By the final 15 minutes I was having doubts.  Would one man really experience, let alone survive, so many calamities in such a short period (the film only covers about 14 or 15 hours of real time)?  When a man who's emerged sopping wet from a tumultuous river experience is able to hand over a bone dry envelope, complete with entirely legible letter inside, all credibility was gone.  My disbelief had been unsuspended.

And that's a shame, for this film has so much going for it - performances, cinematography, music, atmosphere - that I wanted to like it, but came away disappointed.  Maybe I'm too much like Andrew Scott's lieutenant?