We finish where we start.

Rating: 8/10 (26 February 2020)

1917 is a film with a very well achieved use of a long shot, which has an intention to the message of the film. The film represents a cyclical process of the characters. In the opening shot the characters start on the floor, resting. This first shot is a static one of a grass and some flowers and we begin to back off, this means that what allows us to rest will be moving away more and more from us. Or worse, we are the ones who move away from that.
That last idea expresses the disagreement against the war that the film (and every good war movie has) communicates. This is indicated with false conformism in all soldiers along the way. From the ironic names of the trenches, to the attitude of the captain before leaving the trenches.
The film generates empathy by including a human purpose to the war, such as avoiding the death of a brother and saving many men who will unnecessarily go to fight. The purpose of the long one shot is to generate that trip that seems to have no return. Then, we realize that it does have an end. The surviving character ends as he starts resting in a tree. Of course, the difference is that now he is alone and that is the difference between the beginning and the end of both the film and the war.
An important and symmetrical element during the film are the flowers seen at the beginning, these appear in moments of calm, in the most sacred moments taken from the war situation. The flowers can be seen at the beginning, when a character dies and finally at the end of the movie, representing that the character returned to that place where he can rest.