1917 (2020)

War movies have a tendency to valorize and glorify the horrors of combat. It is the unique privilege of the film medium that it possesses the means necessary to create a simulated hellscape and spin a tale of heroism within the grim backdrop for an audience’s entertainment. Usually, this is used to showcase a battle of good versus evil, daring missions executed in the name of honor, brotherhood, moral rectitude, and national pride (think American Sniper, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, et al.). The genres of “War” and “Action” are nearly inseparable, and as such, they play by similar rules. On the surface, nearly every war film seems to posit that war breeds bravery and that “good” always prevails. In this way, war films propagandize.

Not so curiously, the diametric opposition to a movie about war that romanticizes the hellish gamut of trials and tribulations is the anti-war film, in which the same tropes and settings are utilized to deliver a significantly different message.

All Quiet on the Western Front, a German-language adaptation of the 1928 novel by Erich Maria Remarche, dehydrates the war film genre of its heroics and injects it with a feeling of total existential futility. While the film is irrefutably a movie about war, its director, Edward Berger, extrapolates the novel’s central anti-war ethos and frames the narrative such that it embodies an antithesis to the glorified heroics depicted in war movies.

The film has modernized the source material’s message for a post-Saving Private Ryan/1917/Call of Duty audience. It is all the more relevant for its portrayal of a country’s population of enlistment-aged men being decimated in a war few want and even fewer understand, as they are led to muddy graves by the hubris and false pride of leaders who never step within shelling distance of the frontlines.

Paul (Felix Kammerer) is a stand-in for the common German soldier. Though he is nearly indiscernible from his fellow mud-smeared and blood-splattered comrades, he is the vessel through which the film’s anti-war message is conveyed. The film begins serene and optimistic as Paul and his schoolmates fake parental consent signatures to enlist, riding the giddy high of camaraderie as they march to the frontlines with a boyish summer camp enthusiasm and flowers pinned to their chests. Fast forward to 18 months later and the war is not going well for Germany. Paul—having witnessed the fatal mutilation of more than one dear friend—has settled into a complacent disillusionment at a reserves camp alongside his fellow soldiers. As a German diplomatic delegation (led by Daniel Brühl) negotiates the terms for their country’s surrender to France, Paul’s regiment is once again called to the frontlines. While the armistice is meant to save the lives of the troops poised to attack, the addition of this “ticking clock” does little to heighten the sense of urgency in the film (especially when compared to Christopher Nolan’s omnipresent, multi-layered hourglasses in Dunkirk), but emphasizes the soldiers’ futility.

Boiling Point (2021) presents itself as the perfect tool for raising awareness about current problems that every bar and restaurant worker must suffer in their day-to-day life. Philip Barantini paints a very vivid portrait of the hospitality industry and the stress suffered by all chefs, bartenders, dishwashers, and everyone who takes part in offering a great experience to the customer.

Lately, it seems like the continuous shot has become a trend in filmmaking. There are several movies edited to appear as one shot, such as Birdman (2014), 1917 (2019), Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002), and Enter the Void (2009). Nevertheless, few of them are actually one single take. For instance, the recent Japanese project One Cut of the Dead (2017), the Norwegian Blind Spot (2018), or the movie reviewed here, Boiling Point (2021) are true uses of one, unbroken shot.

It seems like a lot of pictures are made using this technique just because they have the necessary means to produce them. A lot of directors don’t consider the fact that this is actually a very powerful storytelling tool. In this case, Barantini’s choice of shooting the whole film in only one take is brilliant. He doesn’t only achieve the goal of creating a dynamic idea about what it means to give a dinner service in a luxurious restaurant, but he also manages to transmit the stress that the characters are suffering, how everything works in these posh restaurants, and the problems they must cope with. You can sense the dense atmosphere and the feeling of being under pressure in every situation.