Directed By Edward Berger

Starring – Felix Kammerer, Daniel Bruhl, Albrecht Schuch

The Plot – Based on the best-seller of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, the film tells the gripping story of a young German soldier on the Western Front of World War I. Paul (Kammerer) and his comrades experience first-hand how the initial euphoria of war turns into desperation and fear as they fight for their lives, and each other, in the trenches.

Rated R for grisly images involving strong bloody war violence

All Quiet on the Western Front | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

POSITIVES

For over a century, “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been the quintessential war story handed down for generations, representing the cruel and traumatic experiences of geographic conflict, and those brave and innocent soldiers enveloped in the consequences of bureaucracies handed down from those nestled safely in their ivory towers. It’s an anti-war film, but one that exists in the clutches of its terrifying conflict, this time with the benefit of top tier production and tantalizing techniques that feel closer than ever towards emulating the terrifying realities that millions have died fighting for. Berger’s monumental direction here paints an inescapably immersive nightmare that not only relishes in the unpredictable vulnerabilities and futilities of war, complete with spontaneous bursts of ammunition in the blanketing of the film’s haunting sound designs and Volker Bertelmann’s starkly scintillating score producing an ominous cloud of dread, but also in the tangibles of the environments themselves, from the murky, mud-riddled trenches of the army’s commanding bases, to the boldly thick make-up designs commanding a map of disparity and suffering for those unfortunate enough to survive throughout its devasting duration. The film is cloaked in believability, but not evaded of what’s at stake in the continuous shuffle, conjuring these spell-binding scenic depictions of the setting that illustrates the beauty of life left in isolation, with the many mountainsides and snow-cover of the scenery emitting an air of inevitability for the devastation that surrounds them. This is further met with improvements in the writing department, with a script from Berger, Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson, which does tie itself closer to the 1929 novel of the same name, but in ways that commands a much wider scope of the conflict than just that set on the battlefield. The one familiar essence is of the youthfully ambitious classmates being excited for the promise of being shipped off to war, but from there the screenplay is met with a balance safe zone negotiation between the French and German diplomats, with its own measure on influence on the interpretation. While the political side isn’t as riveting or as endearing as that of the conflicts in the grasps of war, it does convey with it the ignorance of politics, and everything lost in translation from the greed of regimens who value their wallets above advertised freedoms. The negotiations between them does help to maintain the urgency of the narrative, but in ways that allude to the proximity of their on-going negotiations, with moments of levity from the battlefield used instead to appriase value to conversations and interactions that today’s leaders should take a page from. The formula itself does become a bit redundant with a nearly two-and-a-half hour run time, but appropriate enough for the never-ending nature of its conflict, which pits its audience through a grueling mental and physical exercise that feels exhausting, but for all of the right reasons, by film’s end. There’s also an appreciation in telling this from the German’s side of the story, who are often reduced to history’s antagonists, but here provides idealism to those victims by association who were statistics as a result of the propaganda that at the very least cost them their lives. As for characterization, beyond Paul, we’re once again intentionally left with a mostly ambiguous troop of ensemble, which in its own merits articulates the pawns who are left to sacrifice with the grinding gears of the ever-moving machine they are enveloped in. This surface level exploration alludes to no one man being bigger than war itself, but beyond that certifies that any of them are expendable in the depths of tragedy, with Paul serving as the sole conscience of the on-going narrative’s psychological fright. Paul himself is performed exceptionally by Kammerer, whose boldly entrancing eyes and decaying personality provides food for thought in the confines of how war can change a man, which is only further exceeded by the continuous physicality he unloads in the heat of some truly unforgiving engagements that transform him visually and emotionally before our very eyes. Daniel Bruhl is also captivating as Matthias Erzberger, a real-life politician who spoke out against the war from 1917, and one whose Reich government was ultimately responsible for signing the armistice that eventually ended the war. Bruhl himself commands attention with the heart and tenderness he affords the character, feeling like the element of humanity that is continuously lost in the shuffle, but one who wears the impact of the many souls his government is responsible for, in turn granting us a co-protagonist aside from Paul whom we can embrace off of the battlefield, despite a majority of his interactions with opposing forces being plagued by ignorance of act first, talk second kind of diplomats. Finally, and most importantly, the action sequences themselves are supercharged, intense, and especially revolting, but beyond that responsible in not glorifying war in the same way that a majority of war films can be argued guilty of portraying. Here, the conflicts themselves are nasty and very vulgar, providing an unmistakably grim appeal in their depictions, but beyond that ambitiously realistic in their usage of tactical engagements, with one such scene involving a tank driving over the trenches of the German army unlike anything that I have ever seen in cinema. The sequences themselves are rare enough to never feel redundant, with the versatility of their scenery and weaponry appraising a constantly evolving dynamic to the many shape-shifting conflicts that spring from such, giving us value in the spontaneous decision making from soldiers that only afforded them seconds to mentally conceive before their oppositions returned with magnified force and intensity.

NEGATIVES

Other than the endurance and exhaustion with the never-ending emphasis of war, there’s nothing I can even remotely critique here.

OVERALL
As expected, “All Quiet on the Western Front brings us a devastating insight at the brutalities of war throughout an anti-war captivity, but this time with the appeal of dazzling production values emulating the cruel and unforgiving circumstances of war’s unrelenting physical and psychological grip. In commanding such, Berger’s take is a scolding indictment on the futilities of war, but beyond that one that refuses to be cinematically spoiled with inspiring speeches or resiliency in heroism undercutting the authenticity of the conflicts, instead leaving us with the neo-nationalism of a death machine that unfortunately even today keeps on moving.

My Grade: 10/10 or A+