Beautiful cinematography, frustrating character(s)

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2020)

The cinematography of this film delivers in capturing a vision of the hell-scape of the WW1 battlefield in France. Many of the scenes are hauntingly surreal, my favorite being the night-fight lit only by flares overhead.
I found myself frustrated by the main character's choices, though with the huge caveat that I have no idea how I would've actually reacted in his boots...and just as likely would've been one of the people pissing himself, paralyzed with fear like the captain in the final trench in the final battle.
That said, the movie compels you to think "what would you do?" as we follow Blake and Scofield on their lonely mission. My gut instinct would've been to shoot the German pilot immediately in his burning plane, not try to rescue him. Likewise, the German NCO puking in the street at night from overindulgence with brandy was a sitting duck and I was hoping Scofield would shoot him in the head. He fails to do so and winds up having to strangle a German private with his bare hands a few minutes later--far more up close and personal and dangerous! Yes, shooting the German soldier in the street would've given away his position, but his surviving and yelling "EnglÃ¤nder!" did that anyway. Perhaps I've just played too many FPS videogames...I found myself frustrated to Scofield's choices at times. I found myself unsure what to do with the realization that I'm apparently a few degrees more bloodthirsty than he. He succeeds in his mission, so you can't argue with results, I guess. And the primary objective is to get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible, not to waste time fighting Germans. The story has a ring of truth to it because he does (partially) succeed. If this were pure fiction aiming to convey a sense of nihilistic pointlessness of war, then the orders would've become unreadable after being dunked in the river with Corporal Scofield and the attack would've gone off to utter disaster anyway. Or at the very least Lt. Blake would've been lost in the first wave--but miraculously wasn't. Likewise, Scofield's flouting my expectations with his flawed but all too human (and humane) choices lends it an air of credibility as well. Truth is stranger than fiction at times.
One of the limitations of film is that while it can show us the horrific landscape of twisted, bloated, rotting corpses of horses and men, it can't reproduce the equally horrific stench that would've driven many of us insane. Likewise, unless we have personal experience to draw on, we only have our imaginations to guess what the mud & cold and discomfort felt like, and the words of survivors who wrote down their experiences for posterity.
I didn't know quite what to expect from this movie and while I did enjoy the aesthetic cinematic experience, like others commenting here I also felt vaguely disappointed and dissatisfied. We aren't given enough connection to the two main protagonists to care as much as we should about their plight. A flashback scene to Scofield's visit home, seeing family & friends but having the heaviness of knowing he had to return to the front might've helped this film, or giving us more of Blake's pre-war backstory....this is what got sacrificed for the sake of the illusion of "one long take"...
I also had minor quibbles with Corporal Scofield needlessly cycling the bolt action on his Lee Enfield, dramatically signaling his preparing to fight. The Lee Enfield rifle remains ever ready to fire after the first round is chambered. It's fine to show him run out of ammo and reload a fresh charger of ammo into the magazine, but beyond that he shouldn't be operating the bolt at all except between shots. But Hollywood & unreal Guns is a known cliche. Just eyeroll with it and get back to enjoying the story.