Director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins complete their mission, immersing viewers in one hellish day on the Western Front in April 1917 as experienced by two journeyman soldiers.

The odyssey of Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) is told in one ostensibly seamless and sinuous take through the trenches, no man’s land, and the battlefield. The effect comes across as occurring in real time, and the lack of apparent cuts lends to the urgency while always maintaining the focus on the two baby-faced young men. The camera has to keep up with them as they trudge upstream against the tide of fellow soldiers in the narrow trenches. The film is, in fact, composed of long takes of roughly five to six minutes each, and I assume that the entire movie is comprised of about 20 takes—or at least that’s a guess.

Danger comes from all corners: snipers; huge, voracious rats; and land mines. The war, in its many facets, is the central character as the German and British forces are at a stalemate near the town of Caen in northern France. Because the Germans have cut the British forces’ telephone lines, Blake and Schofield are ordered to hand deliver a message to another division to prevent an advance on German forces the following morning. General Erinmore (Colin Firth) believes that the Germans, with more manpower, have intentionally lured the British into a trap where 1,600 men could perish.

The hovering aerial shot is a staple of war films. Cinematographers have gone to these wide shots to capture the full scope of battle (Saving Private Ryan), and here the filmmakers have managed to up the ante. The scope here is vaster, with miles of trenches and the intricate choreography between the actors and the camera. We have come a long way in a short amount of time from other seemingly one-take films, such as Birdman (2014) and the German-made Victoria (2015).

The filmmakers share a similar goal as Christopher Nolan’s World War II–set Dunkirk, allowing for viewers to vicariously experience warfare. However, the Great War is quite different in circumstances than what Nolan depicted; different battle strategies make different films. But perhaps the major contrast between the two epics is Mendes’s clear and straightforward focus. Nolan more ambitiously widened his view, juggling many threads related to the May 1940 Allied evacuation of the French coastal town.

Though the emphasis leans toward action, Blake and Schofield are not lost in the shuffle. Schofield has a hard edge; he dreads returning home and cryptically mentions that he has done away with his ribbons that he earned in the Battle of the Somme. The cast is largely made up of largely unknowns, with an A-list actor popping up every now and then to issue orders. Overall, the big names don’t detract from the main story line, though audiences will instantly recognize the resonant off-screen voice of Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Golden Circle) before he even steps foot onscreen.

In a few instances, the complications that the two messengers face arise from the keyboards of the scriptwriters as opposed to the chaos of war, such as an episode involving a downed German plane, which comes close to doubling as a deus ex machina. Fortunately, the CGI effects only fleetingly and obviously come into play when Schofield leaps and flies in the air in an escape sequence that comes close to appearing like something out of a video game.

Nevertheless, Deakins and Mendes have whipped up a barrage of horrific images and some of the year’s most spellbinding moments—Deakins has credited his love for the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) for the inspiration of a bombarded, nearly deserted French village aglow in red. Also inspired by the still photography of the historic conflict, they have made a film that’s ultimately more melancholic than triumphant.