"All Quiet On The Western Front" (2022)
This excellent anti-war film based on the 1929 novel "Im Westen nichts Neues" by Erich Maria Remarque is currently available on Netflix. At two hours twenty eight minutes in length, it is an epic watch yet I must admit that I was gripped throughout it.
Unusually, it considers World War One from a German viewpoint and from there it looks just as ugly, just as pointless and just as inhuman as it has variously been seen from the opposite angle.
It mostly revolves around the last weeks of the war and focuses upon a group of school friends who have joined up with boyish notions of what being a soldier will be like. Their fantasies are quickly dashed as they enter a living hell of mud, blood, noise and confusion. What is it all for? Nobody seems to know.
One of the school chums almost makes it to The Armistice at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month of 1918. He is Paul Bäumer played by Felix Kammerer and as witnesses we have watched him all the way, through the trenches, the killing and the camaraderie. Dialogue is sparse and Bäumer seems to be in a permanent state of terror.
As I say, words are few. This film relies heavily on imagery. It's hard to talk when you are surrounded by brutality and the obvious futility of war. There's a starkness about it all - little colour in an endless winter. It could so easily have been filmed in black and white were it not for the orange flame throwers and the scarlet puddles of blood.
You may prefer films that you can skip away from having been lightly entertained - an "ooo!" here and a chuckle or a tear there but conversely, "All Quiet On The Western Front" grabs you by the throat and tells you that it is something more than mere entertainment.
Looking at what is currently happening in Ukraine, we may reflect upon why humanity has still not learnt vital lessons about the absurdity of war. We carry on as though there was no yesterday.
I read the book years ago and loved it but don't think I want to watch it in vivid detail. People, humans, don't seem to learn.
ReplyDeleteIf I had enjoyed the book years ago I would have been very curious about how it would appear in film but everybody is different.
DeleteIt's a heartbreaking story. My heart's been kicked around enough lately.
DeleteIt is absolutely astounding to me that humans STILL wage war. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteAnd it never solves anything. More likely to spark more wars.
DeleteI wouldn't be able to watch it. I understand the horrors that went on but I really cannot bear to see them.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that more men than women would be drawn to this film.
DeleteI remember the film version with John Boy out of The Waltons appearing in it. Can't think of his real name.
ReplyDeleteYou are talking about the 1979 version with the lead part played by Richard Thomas. Strange casting.
Delete*All Quiet on the Western Front 1930 Lew Ayres.* YouTube.
DeleteThis was the film that haunted my mother.
She was 22 years-old on Sunday September 1st 1939 when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that Britain along with France had declared war on Germany because Hitler had not kept his promise, and had invaded Poland.
She told me her first thought was for her two adored brothers.
One brother survived a serious head wound in France when his jeep was blown up and his English captain was killed outright.
Another brother was away five years having given up his leave twice for fellow soldiers who had just got married.
He emerged from unscathed with an Italian bride.
My mother met my father in Rolls Royce then a weapons plant.
Neville Chamberlain had been a veteran of WWI like Clement Attlee our 1945 Labour Prime Minister, who led the greatest government Britain ever had.
They gifted us the National Health Service admired the world over.
By coincidence, I recently read the novel a few months ago for the first time. It was definitely gripping, and I feel it was worth it, but as you said, all the horrors of war don't seem to make any difference to the human race. As soon as someone with power wants something that's not theirs, they start the cycle again.
ReplyDeleteDo you have access to Netflix Jenny? It would probably be a worthwhile experience for you watching the new film version of the novel.
DeleteI've been thinking about seeing it for weeks but never seem to get around to it. But just this morning I put it on my list of things to watch. Your review makes it all the more likely I will, as well as the Academy Award nomination.
ReplyDeleteHave you okayed this with SWMBO?
DeleteShe said she's pass on it.
DeleteOkay but has she given permission for you to watch it?
DeleteYes, I began it yesterday and finished it today. Violent and bloody but a well made film, I believe, illustrating the idiocy and the futility of war, especially brought out by the words on the screen summing up the war at the end of the movie. Thanks for encouraging me.
DeleteErich Remarque's novel *Heaven Has No Favourites* was adapted for the screen under the direction of Sydney Pollack.
ReplyDeleteThe title was changed to *Bobby Deerfield* with Al Pacino in the eponymous role.
Last year I purchased two Remarque novels, *The Way Back* (1930) the sequel to his most famous book *All Quiet on the Western Front*.
Then I read his last book *The Promised Land* set in the United States.
An afterword described it as an uncompleted novel like *Edwin Drood* by Dickens.
It was translated from German by Michael Hofmann well known as a poet and as the son of Gerd Hofmann the post-war German novelist.
As William Faulkner said, 'The past is not dead, it is not even past.'
Remarque's Europe and his America thronging with war refugees are very much alive and relevant to our own precarious times.
Faulkner's remark was most apposite.
DeleteI watched this per Steve's recommendation over at Shadows and Light and I found it to be an excellent movie. Usually those long ones find me bored in spots but this one kept me riveted the entire time.
ReplyDeleteSame for me Ed. I didn't drift away once. I was transfixed.
DeleteActually it wasn't Steve who recommended it but another blogger over on The Forty Five.
DeleteI read Steve's blog every morning and I did not recall him reviewing this film but to make sure I spent eleven hours looking for that review. Thanks a lot Ed!
DeleteCorrection : Gert Hofmann (1931-1993).
ReplyDeleteAmong his books available in English paperback translation ...
The Film Explainer. Our Conquest. The Parable of the Blind.
Balzac's Horse is a collection of brilliant short stories.
Thanks.
DeleteThe book was incredible, but I've never seen the film. Land, money and power are not worth the lives lost in war. Not even close. Yet the (usually) men who instigate it are usually far from the violence.
ReplyDeleteYes. It's always men. Safe in their bunkers. Playing war like chess. If you have access to Netflix you should, in my opinion, experience the 2022 film Margaret.
DeleteIt only takes one dictator and a 100 million people doing nothing to prevent it to cause a war and, in theory - we hope - annihilation.
ReplyDelete*1916, The Year First World War Should Have Ended.*
ReplyDeleteYouTube. Benoit Chenu - Historian.
I wish I had time to follow up all your links John.
DeleteI was thinking about the Ukraine as soon as I started reading. Has a movie been done on why we keep on fighting wars.
ReplyDeleteWe should all have our heads examined.
Delete"We". Most of the world does see the futility and horror of war. Unfortunately it is not 'we' who get to decide.
ReplyDeleteThey say that people get the leaders they deserve.
DeleteAgain, I would say that not everyone gets to pick their leaders either.
DeleteThe title is familiar, maybe I have seen it. When was it made and first released? I will check at IMDb.
ReplyDeleteFirst made in 1930 and again in 1979, so I'm betting I have seen it as my Dad would have watched it.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you did the research River.
DeleteI read the book in 2015 and reviewed it here:
ReplyDeletehttps://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2015/02/read-in-2015-7-im-westen-nichts-neues.html
I was not aware of this 2022 film, but I doubt I shall watch it. There has been too much sadness going on in my own life recently, and the Ukraine war is happening only a few 100 km from here, with millions of refugees already in this country, and countless more on their way.
As you say, as a species we just don't seem to learn our lessons. Ever.
I still consider the book very important; it should be mandatory reading not just in schools, but for every politician who has the power to send his or her people to war.
When is the last time a leading politician actually participated in a war? They always seem keen to keep themselves as safe as possible.
DeleteWait...politicians can read?
DeleteLast August we took our fifteen year old grandson on a tour entitled "All quiet on Midwestern front" in Belgium and France. It was very well organised and educational. We visited battlefields and cemetries. Many of which some ancestors fought in.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that troubled me was the German cemetries. They were not allowed flowers or shrubs to be planted and all the headstones were black with just the name and date of death displayed. There were many, many mass graves contained within the cemeteries too. Such a contrast to the British and the allies cemetries, with the pale stone headstones, flowers shrubs, trees and memorials. Benches to sit on , books of remembrance.
It didn't seem right somehow. I know the Germans were the aggressors but the young men were just like ours. Weren't they?
Germany invaded neutral Belgium aiming at an easy victory over France.
DeleteGermany urged Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia knowing the conflict would escalate.
So was Germany the aggressor in WWI ?
Those who signed the punitive Treaty of Versailles in 1919 thought so.
The bigger picture is more complex.
Historian Cameron Greene writes:
*Germany did NOT cause the Great War, she neither instigated it nor orchestrated a convoluted series of historical animosities that were timed to blow up at just the right time.*
See Quora : Did Germany cause the First World War ?
As for German rearmament that led to WWII, Germany was helped to rearm by Western powers which feared Bolshevism.
Visiting cemetries is an unusual holiday for a fifteen year old lad. I hope your grandson appreciated the experience.
DeleteWe took him, not to holiday but to show him where his ancestors fought and so he had a knowledge of the first world war.
DeleteNo, we never learn. If only we could recognise, and annihilate, each megalomaniac before they wreak the horrors of their twisted minds on the world.
ReplyDeleteI'm not likely to watch the film - I don't have, or want Netflix, or any other of the other streaming channels. I just don't watch that much TV.
I started reading the book years ago, as a teenager, but couldn't finish it. Not sure I'd want to go back and finish it.
I think it is great that TV doesn't dominate your solitude Carol.
DeleteI'm sure it's a great film, but I just can't do heavy subjects and sadness these days. I read the book as a kid but probably wouldn't re-read it now for the same reason I won't see the film. Life is too depressing as it is without making myself feel worse!
ReplyDeleteI don't think we can appreciate the full beauty of human life if we don't have a full sense of the ugliness too. But maybe seeing gritty war films is more of a masculine pastime.
Delete"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing."
ReplyDelete*Ukraine war makes Lords members richer through investments.
DeleteTory peers are among the five House of Lords members with investments of at least £50,000 in BAE Systems.*
Open Democracy. Adam Bychawask.
£50,000 is pocket change, chump money compared with the big investors.
*No Business Without Enemies. War and the Arms Trade.*
TN Longreads.
What is it good for? Lining the pockets of mercenaries and investors and speculators who seek to capitalise upon wars.
DeleteRemember 'nice' John Major, the 50 shades of grey man ?
DeleteIn 2002 our former Prime Minister was earning £500, 000 a year working one or two days a week for an armaments corporation.
Sir John was European chair of Carlisle Group which specialises in lethal weaponry.
Sir John's contacts & political clout were what made him useful to Carlisle, former Prime Ministers are 'door openers' as far as trade deals go.
Other 'door openers' for Carlisle included former Mr President George Bush Sr. and former Mr Secretary of State, James Baker.
Poor boggers can't live on their pensions like nurses and teachers.
Sir John's nice little earner helped him buy his Thames River penthouse, not his only residence, where he and Norma keep their fridge full of vintage Champagne and other goodies.
Nice work if you can get it but smelling of untreated sewage in my nostrils.
Potty will say my comment is full of bile.
We must love our noble honest leaders like they do in North Korea.
They only came into politics to give us all better lives, after all.
Having studied German at university and having lived in Germany for many years, I shall try and watch it at some stage, although I suspect it will be hard viewing. Germans have since felt very bad and apologetic about their part in the two World Wars and the Holocaust, which explains their recent reluctance to supply tanks to Ukraine as it goes against the grain. For most of them, rhey were just like us and dragged into a war rhey didn't want to fight
ReplyDelete.