OSCARS 2023: All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Only two years after Erich Maria Remarque's groundbreaking anti-war novel was published, it was already being adapted to film. The 1930 version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” would prove to be only the third winner of the Best Picture Academy Award. It remains a well regarded film but certainly enough time has passed that there's room for a new version of the story. What really distinguishes the 2022 take on “All Quiet on the Western Front” is that it's a German film. Considering Remarque's book was inspired by his own experiences in the First World War, seeing German filmmakers and artists tackle the story is worthwhile. It seems to have been a successful idea, as the new “Western Front” picked up a number of its own Academy Award nominations.

The year is 1917 and the Great War rages in Europe. Paul Bäumer is but seventeen years old, lying about his age to enlist in the German army. He hopes to be war heroes with his friends but, the very first night he is deployed in the trenches, he watches his buddy Ludwig die in front of him. As the fighting continues, Paul quickly becomes a battle hardened soldier, stealing food to survive and people dying around him every day. He looses more friends as the end of the war draws closer. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away from the front, the leaders of Germany debate a ceasefire with the forces of France.  

Early within “All Quiet on a Western Front,” we see another soldier – a teenage boy – take a bullet to the helmet and flop to the ground. This is the first sign that no punches will be pulled here. What makes the violence all the more effecting is how nonchalant it is. At one point, the camera pans up towards the trees, showing a blown-off arm hanging from a branch. Soldiers quickly become numb to the sight of dead bodies in the trenches. The most harrowing sequence involves a run through enemy territory. A tank crushes a man and bodies are cut in half by machine gun fire. Flamethrowers leave men burning, twitching hunks. None of it is gratuitous, like the stylized violence in Hollywood films like “Hacksaw Ridge” or "Black Hawk Down." It's brutal but realistic, the focus as much on the terror and dread of the acts as the death itself. Seen in the screaming faces, the fleeing rats, and the panic stricken men. 

While it's long been debated if any film that depicts war can truly be anti-war, director Edward Berger makes a pretty good case with his “Western Front.” The film begins with a montage of a terrified young soldier rushing from the trench and into battle. By the next scene, he's already dead. His uniform is stripped from his body, washed, and given to Bäumer. The name tag is carelessly yanked off the shirt before being given to its new recipient. This is how a country at war treats the men, the boys, it sends into combat. This is drawn into especially sharp reflect in the final act, when the German high command forces Bäumer's unit back to the front, to fight a battle in a war that they've already lost. It's futile and awful, life and bodies being wasted to gain a few more feet of ground in a meaningless conflict. “All Quiet on the Western Front” goes out of its way to repeatedly emphasize how purposeless all this horrible destruction is. 

Yet “Al Quiet on the Western Front” is not just an act of war-time nihilism, meant to savagely draw attention to the pointlessness of war. Instead, the movie focuses in on the experiences of the boys fighting it. A camaraderie forms among people when you're facing death with them, every single day. Especially touching is the bond Bäumer forges with a soldier nicknamed Kat. Despite being older and having a wife, Kat is also illiterate, the younger man reading letters from his wife to him. The men try and find what peace they can in such a horrible situation. They steal a goose from a farmer, loving being able to share a real meal together. Another solider named Franz gets to spend a night with a French prostitute and treasures the scarf she gives him. He gives each one of his friends a whiff of it. It's not much – it's almost nothing actually – but this is the only joy they have to hold onto. 

That the men in the trenches are so starved and desperate, that they steal food sitting on the table in enemy embankments, is notable. Edward Berger's film adds a new subplot to the story, that isn't present in the text. These scenes detail the German authorities negotiating with the French powers. These scenes not only draw attention to the harshness of the terms of Germany's surrender, a dark foreshadowing of events that would lead to a second World War. It also shows the high-ranking officials and leaders eating fine meals in opulent halls, around warm fireplaces where they can feed their dog. These are the men who decide to launch another futile battle, to destroy more lives to serve nothing more than their pride. The men who send boys to die get no taste of the scarcity and horrors they cause. 

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is powerful filmmaking. The pounding musical score creates an atmosphere full of doom. The cinematography is bleak but meaningful, showing the extensiveness of the devastation. The acting is subdued but well orchestrated, while the grisly make-up makes the bleached-out skin and sunken eyes of the combatants especially vivid. It's not a movie I especially want to revisit. It's a grim movie but makes its point effectively. War is hell, always has been and always will be. If human beings continued to blow each other for no good goddamn reason, compelling films like “All Quiet on the Western Front” will continue to need to be made. [8/10]