A gripping story but a few unrealistic inconsistencies...

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2020)

1917 is clearly a riveting film with a captivating timeline. The story is simple, 2 young men have 8 hours to get from one part of the front to another, but the way it is staged is completely mesmerizing. Personally, I got caught up in a succession of actions and the fact that the movie is filmed as one shot reinforces this feeling of immersion in the conflict and this constant anxiety about the clock ticking down. On top of that, the scenery is incredible : trenches and cratered no man's land contrast with endless green plains, and the atrocity of the war showed in some quite hard scenes is intertwined with the bonds of brotherhood and friendship between the two heroes, which is the guideline of the story.
However, some unrealistic scenes really bothered me. For example, the passage where the hero runs in a maze escaping bullets looked too much like a videogame scene. The nightmarish atmosphere that the light effects had created broke the realism that had been created so far, and this feeling of immersion disappeared. Of course, it came back pretty soon but that scene disappointed me, just as other unconvincing details did, like the huge waterfall in the North of France, or the hero's last run in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by explosions.
Don't make me say what I didn't say, this movie is still a masterpiece which is worth seeing !