All Quiet on the Western Front is now streaming on Netflix.
All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t the first film to show us that war is hell. It isn’t even the first movie to tell this particular story – the 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front was an Oscar winner in its own right. However, director Edward Berger’s take on the World War I epic novel is as poignant as ever.
Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) is a teenager, and he’s desperate to sign up to serve his country. He’s been sold a lie – promises of glory and heroism by the military men and politicians who are happy to throw German youths into the meat grinder. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Berger’s take on this classic war story is excruciatingly grim because it has to be. His focus on the propaganda compared to the harsh reality of life in the trenches is subtle and unflinching, with a particularly gut-wrenching scene showing Paul collecting his uniform – no idea that the clothes on his back had been scavenged from the dead.
The subtle bleakness is everywhere, and when Paul arrives in the trenches he’s given a harsh lesson: it’s time to shape up or drop dead where you stand. And that’s just the start of it. The fantasies of heroism and valor are quickly torn away as the realities of war kick in. Nothing could prepare him, and that’s the point – nobody has even tried to. He’s just more meat for the grinder as the German war machine rumbles on.
Kammerer may be a newcomer, but his performance is nuanced and chilling in equal measures. Bäumer isn’t just out of his depth – each and every moment of life on the front lines leaves him desperately trying to catch his breath. Kammerer captures every moment with an agonizing depth that he wears on his sleeve throughout. This truly incredible performance highlights the horror of a young soldier forced to confront every nightmare imaginable. Bäumer is under the lens, as every moment pushes him further away from the young man he was.
Thankfully, it’s not all relentlessly bleak. All Quiet on the Western Front is punctuated with some truly wonderous moments of camaraderie, as you might expect from a war film. But as you also might expect from an anti-war movie, it walks a fine line between humanizing and glorifying its lads. Kammerer certainly holds the film together with his heartbreaking central performance, but it’s really an ensemble effort as we get to know the other soldiers he’s been thrown into the trenches alongside.
War never changes, but All Quiet on the Western Front gives us a fresh look at the age-old horrors.
Albrecht Schuch pulls out a blinder of a performance as the strangely upbeat Kat, a roguish, likeable German soldier who will go to any length for his pals. Equally, Edin Hasanovic adds yet more to the group as Tjaden Stackfleet. There’s a charming scene in which the group rustles a goose from a local French farm, showing these boys at their best in between the screams and machine gun volleys.
But these touching moments don’t last for very long, and that’s entirely the point. All Quiet on the Western Front is a stark reminder of the humanity lost to war on both sides of the trenches. One particularly horrifying scene sees Bäumer facing the reality of his own actions after stabbing a French soldier to death. There are moments like this throughout All Quiet on the Western Front – grim reminders that it shouldn’t have come to this, alongside pointed warnings that we should never let it happen again.
Berger’s grim depiction of military leaders and politicians as unflinching, single-minded monsters is certainly to be expected but is pierced by the story of Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) whose role in the final moments of the Great War unfolds parallel to Bäumer’s personal tale from the trenches. Of course, their stories are entwined as Erzberger chases an end to the horror. But we’re constantly reminded how much distance there is between the military leaders and the boys in the trenches, and it serves as a striking counterpoint to any heroic notion that the war is for the good of the homeland.
Meanwhile, a quietly haunting score occasionally punctuates the visceral rhythms of the German war machine with grinding inevitability. The calm of political office is always shattered by the crackle of machine guns and the screams of terror.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a brutal, bloody, and frighteningly realistic interpretation of the original 1929 novel. Berger is meaningful in capturing the horrors of war, echoing the anti-war sentiments in a fresh, but thoroughly bleak way. The carnage that unfolds as soldiers go over the top is beautifully shot, both visceral and heart-pounding. The trenches have never looked so real, and Kammerer’s instinctive performance gives us an innocent face to attach to the abject horror of the Great War. All Quiet on the Western Front is a harsh reminder of the sheer inhumanity of war. It will be a tough watch for some, but you’re rewarded with one of the most poignant anti-war stories of all time.
War never changes, but All Quiet on the Western Front gives us a fresh look at the age-old horrors.
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