I started watching this after seeing the reading in IMDB. The rating was 8.
To state it planely... The greatest docu I have ever seen.
The movie was completely brilliant in the way they restored the film and added 3d to 100 year-old archive footage! The post-show interview with Peter Jackson was also worthwhile.
There is not much secret about what this is about, except for the many details of how it was actually done. Watching the making of the documentary on the DVD "extras" enhances what you will see.
Wonderful effort by famed director Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, to put together the existing footage of WW1, together with narrations from troopers who fought, to bring to life the realities of the trenches. The soundscape with continuously booming artillery was ominous and gave a sense of what it was like.
To see what can be done with this old footage and film material. Colored, in right speed and with added voices after lip Reading it just makes it amazingly realistic.
In some ways just like trench life - at times mesmerising, moving, frustrating, exciting, boring, but always profoundly impressive. Eschewing any kind of big picture strategic detail, this film focusses on the lived experience of the lowly soldier in the rank and file and it does a fabulous job at that.
This is a lesson for any of us who take for granted everything we have today! Eternal respect for those who lived such an horror !!!