All Quiet on the Western Front - Review

I have a hard time when I watch a highly praised film and end up disliking it as I often question if it is a matter of me missing something which others have picked up on or if it is simply a bad film. Given this, I often revist the movies I dislike more than the ones I enjoy as I am always wondering if the next time I see them if everything will come together and it will finally be something I like. Having rewatched many films I can honestly say that sometimes my opinion does change for the better as it did when I rewatched Everything Everywhere All at Once which I will be reviewing soon. However, my opinion of the first film I will review here did not waver as much as you will see below.

All Quiet on the Western Front:

All Quiet on the Western Front is the latest adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque 1929 novel, which I read and enjoyed some years ago, which follows a single German soldier in the First World War named Paul Baumer, played by Felix Kammerer, throughout his extended time with his comrades at the aforementioned Western Front where much of the fighting of the “Great War” occurred. I first watched this film several months ago and I did not enjoy it but seeing as how the movie has received much acclaim recently at several prominent awards shows I decided to give the movie a second viewing to see if my opinion would change. While I did get more out of it this time around I found that many of the initial criticisms were still valid and I will lay them out in detail now.

My biggest problem with the film was the musical score which I found to be quite annoying and entirely incomparable with the subject matter at hand. While the movie tries to tell the harrowing story of how young boys full of patriotism and dreams of valour are brainwashed into enlisting in the army only to be brutally awoken to the true horrors of war all of this was undermined by the constant bellowing horn sound effect throughout the film reminiscent of the famous ‘angry boat’ sound effect that made its way into movie trailers over a decade ago. This larger than life sound which my mind associates with modern summer blockbusters and superhero movies felt completely out of place in a historical war film based in the 1910’s. Maybe I am being picky here but I have to be honest about how the movie made me feel and as soon as I heard this sound effect being played it took me out of the film and the more the movie kept going back and replaying this sound the more absurd it seemed. While I am being nit picky I should also mention, and this is not a criticism for this movie alone, that the common scene where someone eats a large amount of food very quickly since they have not eaten in a while is a tired cliché which makes me cringe every time I see it simply due to how overdone it is and thus when it occurred several times in this movie I again was not impressed.

Here is the famous 'angry boat' sound effect that was used in a number of movie trailers following the release of Inception.

Here is the closest thing I could find online to the sound effect that was used several times in All Quiet on the Wetsern Front. The video will start exactly where that sound effect plays.

Beyond these minor problems I had with the formal qualities of the film I also found that the movie suffered from a lack of interesting or even well defined characters. Most of the people we follow in the film are the young soldiers we first see enlisting at the start of the film and they all share the same essential character traits those being that they are excited to join the army as they believe they will quickly achieve glory and be seen as heroes. While this is not a new story it is none the less compelling as humans seem incapable of sustaining themselves without conflict. Additionally, the movie seemed to allude to this fact that humans cannot escape war as the war movie was book ended with shots of the environment and animals which I interpreted as meaning that war is simply part of human nature.

Here are two pictures showing what I mentioned above where the beginning (shown at the top) and closing of the film (shown at the bottom) both show shots of nature.

Unfortunately these interesting ideas are subverted by a narrative structure which I found to be too abrupt as the characters we initially meet at the start of the film are hastily thrust into the throes of combat such that within a matter of minutes we see them go from smiling and joking about to being filled with terror as they endure a bombardment of shells in the trenches. While I did understand that the movie was trying to show how the rug was pulled out from underneath these young men and their deluded military ambitions I found it hard to believe that this would all occur in ten minutes from the time they get their uniforms to being at the front lines.

It got worse though as not long after they first become aware of the situation they have found themselves in the movie decides to take huge leap into the future such that we again see our characters in a new light now some 18 months into their military enlistment where they have become battle hardened and undaunted by their predicament. Cycling quickly between these moments as opposed to letting them happen naturally over the course of the movie made it hard to empathize with the characters or see them as different from one another since so much of their transformation in the film felt inorganic and contrived.

Comparatively, in the third act of the film our main character Paul Baumer, who is played brilliantily by Felix Kammerer, is shown to be completely withdrawn and almost without any emotion only here the audience can empathize with him as this time around they got to slowly experience the loss of a number of his friends with him such that his emotional state seems genuine rather than a destination which the movie necessitated the character arrive at. I wish the rest of the movie had the same emotional weight that is present in this last act where the characters are given time to breath instead of being thrust from one emotional extreme to the next as here they finally begin to seem human as they are shown to have disparate interests, feelings, and levels of despair as opposed to the cliched army youth they seemed to be in the first two acts.

The movie opens with an amazing sequence where we are shown how a field of dead soldiers are transported back to behind the front lines where their bodies are then quickly discarded in a mass grave while their clothes are given special treatment such that they are cleaned of blood so they can be repurposed and given to new recruits as if they were fresh uniforms. Furthermore, I thought it was a great choice to start the movie at the end of a battle where the first thing the audience sees is a field of a dead soldiers such that the following enthusiasm the German youth show for enlisting already seems misguided before we ever see them in combat.

A couple of frames early in the film reflect the cyclical nature of war including the shots focused on the wheel of the sowing machine, the tire of the vehicle transporting the uniforms shown above, and the pile of name tags ripped off the uniforms handed out to soldiers (also pictured above) which have the names of fallen combatants on them showing that the war has become a streamlined process similar to a conveyor belt in a factory. I thought the movie also made good use of a montage specifically where a rousing speech is given to the German youth where the audience first sees a shot of an empty classroom before showing the speech firsthand typifying that that is where they ought to be as opposed to fighting in a hopeless war.

The movie is well made at times as it cleverly shows how little training the young men have received prior to them fighting in the war as Paul is shot early in the film after he fires over the trench at something he thought he saw moving. After he falls back and finds that his helmet shielded him from being wounded an upper level military person stops by and instructs him to move after he fires since the enemy will see his muzzle flash and know where he is, something which Paul obviously was never taught even though his superior tells him this as if it should be second nature to Paul indicating his lack of basic training. Additionally, the passage of time in the movie is reflected in the degradation of Paul and his comrades teeth which appear blackened and heavily decayed after the time skip. Another great moment occurs towards the end of the film when the German’s reluctantly surrender and Paul and his friends are shown to be happy even though they lost the war as they value returning home more than fulfilling their dreams of victory which motivated them to enlist in the first place. The most memorable line in the movie comes from one of Paul’s friends who reassures him after another had died where he states that at least they are at peace while Paul and his living friend must continue fighting which to them seems worse.

The movie is technically impressive in that with a budget of only $20 million the filmmakers were able to create battle scenes that are phenomenal rivalling the best contemporary Hollywood war movies including 1917 and Hacksaw Ridge however the plot here is nowhere near as strong as those other movies. While the movie has several memorable sequences it is largely underdone by an underwhelming story full of cliches that reminded me of movies where they were done better which I feel compelled to list here. For instance, many films have included generals unwilling to accept defeat and living lavishly while their underlings suffer. Additionally, Paul wiping blood from his hands after he murders someone reminded me of Macbeth. However, the most plagiarized moment in the film was the scene where Paul and one of his friends reenact word for word a scene from Stand By Me where the main character is encouraged to pursue an academic career while the other thinks they will be less well off. Additionally, the top German general in the film tells another that his family’s military legacy encouraged him to be a ruthless commander reminiscent of Lieutenant Dan in Forest Gump. One last comparison which I find best showcases how unoriginal this film is the one with Gone With the Wind which came out in 1939 where both movies show amputations being performed on soldiers which are then witnessed by our main character.

Here is a comparison of amputation scenes in Gone With the Wind, pictured above, and All Quiet on the Western Front, pictured below.

This is a frustrating movie since I found the third act to be exceptional especially given the great performance from Felix Kammerer who appeared to be a shell of the happy and youthful person at the start of the movie which I thought was captured well in a few shots which I will show below where he is in the middle of the frame with a completely sullen expression.

I also found the information displayed during the credits about how the Western Front barely moved all the while millions of soldiers died fighting their during the First World War incredibly sad while also informing the despair we can see on Paul’s face at the end of the film where he has become completely disillusioned and understands that the loss he has suffered and effort he has given were ultimately insubstantial in terms of changing the outcome of the war. I wish this movie was as compelling as the third act was. Ultimately, I gave this movie a 4/10. I think this movie could have been great but was undermined by poor character development, unoriginal storytelling, and contrived filmmaking techniques as exemplified in one last picture I will show from the film where dirt strewn on Paul’s face seems to have been placed there by a makeup artist as opposed to organically deposited there.

I enjoyed my last review where instead of ending on a negative note I decided to recommend a different movie which I believe to be better and I want to do that again here.

Letters from Iwo Jima:

Clint Eastwood's 2006 film Letters From Iwo Jima is similar to All Quiet on The Western Front in that it shows a war from the losing side. Eastwood released this film as a companion piece to his other war picture that being Flags of Our Fathers which is another excellent movie which shows the same battle but from the American perspective. Letters From Iwo Jima better depicts, as compared to All Quiet on the Western Front, how a group of soldiers go from basic training where their view of the war is more hopeful to the eventual battle where they lose all optism as they come to realize that they are far outnumbered and outgunned. I highly recommend this movie and I hope more people come to appreciate it as one of the better war films made by one of the world's best directors.

Here is the trailer for Letters from Iwo Jima: