As someone who has studied WW1 for his whole, adult life, I was really worried that I was going to hate this.
Watching the trailer, I was terrified it would imply in Hollywood war film style that certain characters were much better at dodging bullets than others when under random machine gun fire.
I was also worried that it implied there was actually serious movement in the trenches in 1917.
But neither fear was justified. Main characters were not indestructible, and the clever device of setting it in the wasteland, immediately after the Germans' tactical withdrawal to the Hindenburg made the movement idea credible. Although I found myself continually thinking don't touch that, don't lift that throughout the whole film once they had arrived in the first German trench.
I found the continuous filming technique wonderful, but I'll leave discussion of that to others better qualified to do it.
One thing that pleased me the most was its refusal to go rampaging down the usual "lions led by donkeys" route.
The Generals at either end of the film were human, even flexible, but it was the portrayal of the captain / major level officers that impressed me the most.
The main characters came across a number of these during their passage, and invariably, (with one notable exception), they demonstrated how well most of these men reacted to an almost impossible situation.
On both sides, most of these officers may have been misinformed, they may have been motivated for the wrong reasons by their society and education systems but they really were an exceptional generation, and the best of them were virtually wiped out.
Andrew Scott's portrayal of the cynical, efficient captain on the verge of insanity was just wonderful.
Anyway. A massive thumbs up from me. My daughter who sits through the most vile horror films without even a wince said she was exhausted by the end. Both my daughters cried at different stages, even though the film never blatantly pulled at the heart strings in the way that many other WW1 films do.
Watching the trailer, I was terrified it would imply in Hollywood war film style that certain characters were much better at dodging bullets than others when under random machine gun fire.
I was also worried that it implied there was actually serious movement in the trenches in 1917.
But neither fear was justified. Main characters were not indestructible, and the clever device of setting it in the wasteland, immediately after the Germans' tactical withdrawal to the Hindenburg made the movement idea credible. Although I found myself continually thinking don't touch that, don't lift that throughout the whole film once they had arrived in the first German trench.
I found the continuous filming technique wonderful, but I'll leave discussion of that to others better qualified to do it.
One thing that pleased me the most was its refusal to go rampaging down the usual "lions led by donkeys" route.
The Generals at either end of the film were human, even flexible, but it was the portrayal of the captain / major level officers that impressed me the most.
The main characters came across a number of these during their passage, and invariably, (with one notable exception), they demonstrated how well most of these men reacted to an almost impossible situation.
On both sides, most of these officers may have been misinformed, they may have been motivated for the wrong reasons by their society and education systems but they really were an exceptional generation, and the best of them were virtually wiped out.
Andrew Scott's portrayal of the cynical, efficient captain on the verge of insanity was just wonderful.
Anyway. A massive thumbs up from me. My daughter who sits through the most vile horror films without even a wince said she was exhausted by the end. Both my daughters cried at different stages, even though the film never blatantly pulled at the heart strings in the way that many other WW1 films do.
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