Stupe said:
Went last night and I was astounded.
- The random bodies that they never zoomed in on that just appeared from time to time
- The dead horses
- The men getting ready to go over the top
- The assault from the trench and the absolute futility of what they were doing
I felt like the only time that I wasn't on edge was the scene with the child. The rest of the movie, I felt as if my entire body was clinched and waiting for something to happen.
I actually got angry at the utter destruction and futility of that war.
My son and I sat in silence until the lights came on.
So much this. It was what made the closing scenes so powerful (as thirdcoast's post below) undersscores--- all those men just going "over the top" and dying one after another, in campaigns all across Europe, and in most cases for so little gain. While at the same time some of the most incompetent government leaders and generals were in charge of the decision making and kept violating the old definition of stupidity of `doing the same thing and expecting a different result' for so long. World War I destroyed the whole promise of the first part of the 20th Century and was so avoidable. They had so much more in common than differences. And of course World War I ushers in the seeds of the radical Mideast, and radical communism from Soviet Russia and other places. Not to mention Nazism and so much else.
It is appropriate and just that World War One finally start being lifted from the gray limbo of black and white that makes it so unknown to present generations so that it becomes as "real and terrible" as World War II. It is one of the ironies of documentation that World War I is the `war in limbo' because it comes after photography had displaced paintings as war documentation but before it is in color. You see, no one has any trouble "visualizing" the American Revolution, War of 1812, Alamo, and the Civil War in color because of the vivid color paintings of all the actions and clashes (often with photograph quality). The spattering of movies of them also help. But you get to World War I and you lack both many color Hollywood movies--- but have plenty of black and white photographs so that color paintings of it are somewhat edged out.
Its what made "They Shall Not Grow Old" so special, and now "1917".
We need a World War One epic at sea-- - perhaps the chase of the
Goeben which influences modern Turkey by playing a role in bringing the Ottomans into the war on the side of the Germans. Another candidate would be the dramatic pursuit around the world of German cruiser
Emden. Finally ending off Australia.
