All Quiet on the Western Front

Category: War Film

Starring:

A pretty visceral World War I movie depicting the horrors of trench warfare. Told from the point of view of the German soldiers it depicted a harrowing experience spoke to the futility of war.

It starts out in a classroom in Germany when a teacher is giving an impassioned speech about serving the fatherland in the war and the jingoistic speech gets all the young men fired up and they decide that they should all go enlist together. Filled with enthusiasm they join the army and are sent to train under a wannabe despot Colonel Himmelstoss which quickly removes their enthusiasm as they are treated brutally and made to suffer in their training because Himmelstoss is apparently a sadist (although they do get him eventually in a midnight raid but it’s not too serious)

Once deployed they immediately come under fire and one of their group is killed while the rest scatter. Eventually reaching their muster point they realize there’s no food and that they have to pay a veteran solider (Katz) in order to get access to the pig he stole from a truck earlier in the day.

Eventually they get sent to the front lines and the movie treats you to a visceral experience of what war was like during WWI. People dying all around you, the never-ending bombardment of shells, being forced to go over the top of the trench into machine gun fire in order to advance the line. It’s brutal and unflinching (although edited for 1930’s sensibilities)

In a strange coincidence Himmelstoss arrives at 2nd company and is rejected by the men and the next day he’s forced to over the top of the trench with the rest of them and is almost immediately gunned down. One of the soldiers is running down the lines and is attacked and has to stab a man to protect himself and ends up having to stay in a pit all night with the dying man which is traumatic and he ends up begging for the mans forgiveness. 

Later on Paul (one of the soldiers) is badly wounded in action and taken to a\ hospital where his leg is operated on. He eventually pulls through but is given a medical furlough and he returns home. He’s surprised as how everyone in his hometown is still gung-ho on the war and buying into the patriotic fatherland. When he speaks out about the horrors of war he is derided and called a coward.

Paul returns to the front to a new second company (still run by Katz) and is jaded with the futility of it all. During a search for wild pigs for food there’s a bombing and  Katz takes shrapnel in the shin and Paul carries him to a hospital tent, not realizing other shrapnel has hit Katz and he died on the way. Paul can’t believe his friend is dead and he’s shell shocked an devastated.

Back on the front line Paul is in a trench and waiting during a quite time when he sees a butterfly land near his trench. He’s transfixed by this beautiful thing in such an ugly place that he reached out to touch it…

And is promptly 360 no scope sniped. The end.

3/5 – The movie did a good job showing the horrors of trench warfare in World War I and how the interpersonal relationships formed in such a horrid place can be one of the only things to sustain you.