1917

Rating: 10/10 (11 January 2020)

I LOVED this experience. I feel like experience is really the way to describe it too. The performances are great but this is so much more about the technical achievement. A "one-shot" movie set amidst WWI and all the chaos that comes with it.
What it manages to accomplish, as a "one-shot" film, is a sense of immersion, tension and investment into these characters that is truly astounding. So impressive that, for the vast majority of the movie, didn't even know the characters' names, which really irritated me in Dunkirk but here I'm so sucked into this world that it doesn't matter.
It also doesn't try to romanticize the war like some movies would. This is gritty and hard, a torturous and hellish landscape that scars everyone it touches
There are a couple of minor issues I did have. Characters, soldiers that don't shoot when confronted by the enemy. That decide to inexplicably aid someone they never should. I'm sure this stuff happens but it felt a little more like a plot necessity than a character choice.
I need to see this again. Walking out of the theater I was so stoked. The film has flaws and yet I find myself wanting to rave about it and give it the highest score possible. A second watch might knock it down a smidge but for right now, I'll happily love this one.