| When you talk about Epic War Films they’re grand and mostly inspired or created from real world events. Sometimes half-fiction and the other half are based of real events.
There are times some of the film’s elements carry ‘what if’ scenarios. But 1917 is something else and it takes you right to the heart of the action in the thick of it and makes you feel what the main characters feel.
It is based in part on an account told to Sam Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes. The film tells the story of two young British soldiers during the First World War who are ordered to deliver a message calling off an attack doomed to fail soon after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich in 1917.
This message is especially important to one of the young soldiers, as his brother is taking part in the pending attack.
Visually the film focuses on two characters Lance Corporals William Schofield, a veteran of the Somme, and Tom Blake, are ordered by General Erinmore to carry a message to Colonel Mackenzie of the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, calling off a scheduled attack that would jeopardise the lives of 1,600 men, including Blake's brother Lieutenant Joseph Blake.
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