As an avid moviegoer since my early teen years, I have seen a plethora of movies across different genres in theaters. Although the movie theater always enhances my movie experiences, I can recall one movie that was significantly intensified when I watched it for the first time on the big screen. The film, 1917, brought together a melting pot of emotions and realistic moments that has left me with a new perspective about history and war.

1917 takes place amid World War I on April 6, 1917. The film features two British soldiers, Lance Corporal Schofield and Lance Corporal Blake, who were sent on a mission to hand-deliver a crucial message to Colonel MacKenzie, telling him to cancel his scheduled attack on the supposedly retreating Germans the next morning. The two soldiers race against time as they must reach the destination by dawn tomorrow, or else Colonel MacKenzie will order his troop of 1,600 men to risk their lives in an attack on the Germans, not knowing that the Germans had actually made a strategic withdrawal and were waiting to trap the British. With one of the British soldiers in MacKenzie's troop being Blake's brother, Schofield and Blake are also on a mission to save his life.

As the two soldiers journey across the dangerous no man's land filled with abandoned German trenches and barbed wires, each step that the two soldiers took left me tensed up on the edge of my seat. Heavy panting and the sound of cautious, muddy footsteps induced a sense of anxiety within me as I anticipated a detrimental outcome. Suddenly, one of the soldiers punctured his hand on a barbed wire and groaned in pain, causing everyone in the theater to wince. As the two continued their mission, the suspense built up as my heart palpitated in anticipation of another dreadful situation.

Watching 1917 for the first time on a T.V. or device would have drastically minimized the realistic experience that I felt when I watched this film in a theater. The big screen captivated all of my attention into each scenario and obstacle that the soldiers encountered, making me feel like I was a soldier in the war alongside them. Every scene in the movie was filmed in a perspective that clearly exhibited the destruction from battle, with piles of mud, sandbags, and corpses along the trenches and barbed wires. This closely mimicked the atmosphere of war, and with a big screen to amplify the surrounding environment, I was immersed in the war zone. The seats in the theater rumbled with each unexpected attack, creating an additional sensory aspect for both my mind and body to be enthralled by the war.

As someone who was not a big history enthusiast, I walked into the movie with minimal expectations about both the film and my movie experience. Reading about events from decades and centuries ago in bulky, worn-down textbooks at school felt too tedious, giving me the impression that history was an uneventful topic. However, I walked out of the movie with a new mindset about historical wars and how a movie theater can magnify the experience. The film offered me a new vision of how intense battles in war can be, especially during a major war like World War I. This movie inspired me to appreciate history and to continue learning more about it, prompting me to challenge myself in AP history classes throughout my high school years. From reading about the American Revolution to the Civil War and World War II, I began to envision how intense these wars were, like how 1917 displayed the brutality of World War I.