Robocat

So, I did something I rarely do: saw a movie in an actual movie theater.  

Along the way, I was reminded WHY I don't see movies in movie theaters. 

OTHER FREAKING PEOPLE. 

I don't mind people sneaking snacks in, but goddam, do you have to a) bring in snacks in crinkly packaging and b) chew with your mouth open? 

I saw, predictably, 1917, because WWI is one of my many eras of historical nerdery because it's military masculinity floating in a gravy of pure tragedy.  A generation of young men on both sides, raised to think that combat was glorious and virtuous, and dying for your country was an abstract honor....crashing face first into the absolute unmatched horrors of trench warfare? Yeah, obviously I AM RIGHT THERE.  

I've been there ever since I discovered a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front in my school library and cried my face raw at Kemmerich's death.  

Anyway. 

Amazing movie. I thought the tracking shot thing would be gimmicky and annoying.  Thankfully, it wasn't. I did find myself figuring out how they could splice shots seamlessly, but most of the time, the tracking shot thing was flawless.  It did this amazing thing where the camera wasn't doing the job of showing you what was important. There were no dutch angles, reverse over the shoulder reaction shots, no focusing on something important.  The camera just slides over all of it and you have to notice it.  So like they're crossing no man's land and it's absolutely HORRIFIC, the terrain they're crossing.  But if you're not paying attention (like the idiots next to me, the ones who chewed with their mouths open?), you apparently don't get what's going on.  

There were so many absolutely amazing visuals.  Of course the film of All Quiet did a thing with flares and night and visual alienation, but WOW, this movie actually blew that out of the water.  The town, lit by flares, is eerie as hell. 

I'm doing a paper on Midway, and I was thinking about it as I watched this one, because, well, with Midway, there's, in a sense, no real suspense? Like, unless you're an historical ignoramus, you kinda...know who wins Midway. You know the whole Yamamoto plan and the whole Rochefort codebreaking story and even though there's a HELL of a lot of suspense in the actual battle (the course of battle changes in literally 10 minutes), by the 21st century, it's not suspense anymore. You sit down to watch Midway knowing who wins. You might not know which of the characters the film introduces you do will make it, but you know the big contours of the story.  With 1917, all you know is...there absolutely were Colonels who would have ignored orders.  So there was some actual suspense involved.  

The Annoying People Next to Me were annoying all the way through, like...giving ME the weird look because I was crying at the end of the story. OF COURSE I WAS.  No spoilers but let's just say there's a moment where one of the protagonists, himself, breaks down and starts absolutely bawling from fear and terror. What kind of idiot can watch that and NOT be emotionally touched?  

Needless to say, I'm getting a copy of this as soon as I can, to watch and rewatch and repeatedly cry my face off, and catch all the things I probably missed.  

And I'm digging some WWI memoirs off my shelves for a reread. After getting sick, it feels like another thing I'm getting 'back'--my love of history.