All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Directed by Edward Berger
Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced All Quiet on the Western Front
What critics say influenced All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front ‘s showy style invites comparisons to Sam Mendes’ 1917 , while its intense, gritty battle scenes recall Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , death constantly surrounding its characters in a hauntingly matter-of-fact way.
Like so many of the greatest war films, from “Paths of Glory” to “Platoon” to “Saving Private Ryan” to “1917,” this is a difficult and at times heart-wrenching viewing experience, but it’s also a technical marvel, a carefully considered character study and, yes, a timely reminder that the young people who fight and sacrifice and kill and die in wars are pawns in a complex and often maddeningly unnecessary larger chess game.
The battle scenes are on par with anything seen in Sam Mendes’ 1917 , with one massive sequence involving tanks and flamethrowers ranking among the harrowing scenes of up-close-and-personal trench warfare I’ve seen in the genre since Saving Private Ryan .
Tracking the journey of a young recruit Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), whose wide-eyed patriotism for the Fatherland is quickly blooded once he hits the trenches, the film features some sprawling, graphic battle sequences that bear the influence of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan .
It’s more along the lines of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan .
Combining elements of “Son Of Saul,” “Come And See” and with a backdrop that will remind viewers of other great World War I films such “Paths Of Glory” and “1917,” “All Quiet On The Western Front” is an exemplary war film for the ages that is just as relevant and impactful as the 1930 Oscar Best Picture-winning American version, if not, even better.
As with Elim Klimov’s traumatic World War II cheese dream Come and See – an anti-war classic with which this German-language movie has drawn unenviable, but not unfair comparisons – Netflix’s lavishly budgeted All Quiet on the Western Front follows one young man through the fire: 18-year-old recruit, Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer, excellent).
In moments like this, the film has the episodic structure of something like Come and See (1985), which gradually exposes its innocent protagonist to one trauma after another until he’s little more than a cracked and empty shell.
Indeed, Berger and cinematographer James Friend borrow images from another recent World War I film, Sam Mendes’ 1917 (2019), an immersive experience whose virtuosic camerawork distracts from all else.
All Quiet on the Western Front ‘s showy style invites comparisons to Sam Mendes’ 1917 , while its intense, gritty battle scenes recall Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , death constantly surrounding its characters in a hauntingly matter-of-fact way.
StarSolid StarSolid StarHalf StarOutline ( 2.5 stars ) There are times in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Germany’s official Oscar submission, that you might be reminded, more than a little, of “1917,” Sam Mendes’s Oscar-winning 2019 film, also loosely based on real events during World War I.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” surpasses even Sam Mendes’ Academy Award-winning WWI epic “1917” (2019) in its realism and immersive quality.
All this captured TV veteran Berger ( Patrick Melrose , Deutschland 83 ) with unshowier, but no less impressive craft than Sam Mendes’s one-shot Great War drama 1917 .
“All Quiet” makes the point, just as Sam Mendes’ “1917” so memorably did in 2019, that the Great War was fought by kids with their whole lives in front of them.
Right from the jump, we know we’re in the hand of a strong filmmaker as director Edward Berger opens with extreme wideshots of the beautiful French countryside, gazing up to the tree tops like “The Tree of Life” (2011) or “The Revenant” (2015).