All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) Film Review
It’s very hard to remember a war film that isn’t technically anti-war. The trend when portraying the horrible and supposedly civilized practice, is to make a critique of something modern society recurs to every couple of decades. Haven’t we learned something from decades of well-done cinema reflecting the terror of conflict? It seems cinema isn’t as widely present as we thought and superheroes and villains remain more popular than faithful recreations of conflicts we have actually survived from as a society.
To the list we should a pebble in the 2023’s Academy Award’s shoe. Directed by Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front is the third time the Erich Maria Remarque book has been adapted to the big screen, and definitely the best. The 1930 classic stands on its own, but Berger has done a terrific job in depicting the book’s broken ideals while extraordinarily achieving a technical film that will stand aside the best of the genre for the history of cinema. All Quiet on the Western Front is undoubtedly one of the best films of 2022 and one of the best war films of all time.
The story is the same one you know about. It’s the story of 17-year-old Paul who dreams of going to war after he and some friends listen to a speech given on their school. The next day they join the ranks of a German company stationed in France. Paul’s ideals begin to break when he realizes the uniform he’s given belongs to someone else. It’s the beginning of Paul’s frantic fall into the horrors of a war that Germany couldn’t possibly win. In a few hours, an attack leaves Paul without his friends and scarred for life in the godforsaken Western Front.
All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t much more than that. It’s a piece on the effects of armed conflict and the horrific consideration by nations of their young ones. We are sent to war as meat that will serve as shield. Behind us, more and more will come and the horror will never stop. In several scenes, Paul runs through trenches and fires at whoever’s on the other side, but it’s not very clear who’s actually there. He shoots at an enemy that he doesn’t care about. What is Paul fighting for? Who is he defending?
You will ask yourself why he doesn’t stop and keeps growing on being a tool for a nation. But the film answers this constantly as Paul observes the deepest dynamics of a society that fought because they were simply supposed to. The last sequence is a great reflection of such a nerve-wrecking train of thought. Paul goes and goes further when Germany has already surrendered and he follows the orders of a rogue commander that simply refused to give up. I won’t spoil the film, but nothing in Paul’s coldblooded and involuntary attitude can be good.
These are only a few arguments I feel connected with, but All Quiet on the Western Front is an film experience that, considering today’s social dynamics and humankind constantly stepping on the edge of modern war, everyone should watch over and over again.
