What is a soldier without a war?
A German general says it, and it largely sums up the meaning of this
All Quiet on the Front
, which is more than a remake of the 1930 Oscar-winning film.
And that it will surely reach an Oscar nomination for the best international film, in the category where
Argentina, 1985
, is also fighting for a place.
The German Erich Maria Remarque wrote
Western Front
in 1928, that is, a decade after the end of the First World War.
The Hollywood film was made almost immediately.
And now Edward Berger rather than revisits Lewis Milestone's film goes straight to the source material, changes it, yes, but the film is as harrowing and visceral as any war genre made in recent years.
It is often said that it is difficult for a war film to be anti-war, no matter how much the filmmakers want it to be.
It happened with
Coppola
and
Apocalypse Now
, with Oliver Stone and
Platoon
.
All Quiet at the Front
, which shows another side of the First World War, as it did in
1917
, by Sam Mendes, ratifies the desire.
The film, which runs for almost two and a half hours, spares no horrors in combat.
netflix photos
Bloodthirsty, showing the mutilation, the wounds and the horror of the soldiers, the desperation, and also the solidarity.
What the filmmaker does is a kind of parable.
On the one hand, it illustrates how wars are repeated, and in particular in this film, where what Germany wanted was to expand over France, and the title (All Quiet on the Front) is precisely
that
: no progress has been made on the front. more than a few groupers.
The protagonist is Paul (impeccable interpretation of Felix Kammerer), a soldier who is sent to fight, dressed as someone else.
The film opens with a strong image of several soldiers shot to death, and a young soldier (Heinrich) walking by is killed.
It is his clothes, the ones that end up in a bloody, bagged mass that are washed and reused by Paul.
Paul (an always convincing Felix Kammerer), in the middle of the trenches.
Paul is almost as young as Henrich.
He and his schoolmates are excited to march on Paris, when, in the third year of the war, he is enlisted and sent to the front lines.
brothers in arms
The film will follow Paul and his comrades in arms, and will -never- save a drop of blood, a viscera, a mutilated arm or leg.
Paul receives the clothes from another soldier, who had died in the war.
He doesn't know, and it's like a parable from the film.
The soldiers will go from trench to trench infested with rats, with mud and water on their feet, fearing that a superior will shout at them that they must advance and, in the open, attack in front of the French artillery.
Little by little, Paul will establish a relationship with an older soldier, Kat (Albrecht Schuch), who is from a different social class (Kat can't read), who lost his little son and who longs to return to his wife.
The bond is strong between them, whether or not they are going to steal some animal from a pen in Champagne from a French peasant.
There is a character, the liberal politician Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) who is trying to achieve an armistice, a peace like this does not keep adding up the corpses, but on the other hand and on the same German side, there is General Friedrich (Devid Striesow), the one with the opening sentence, who understands no other reasons than his own, and sends more troops to a more than likely death.
"No news at the front"
Very good
War/Drama.
Germany, 2022.
Original title:
“Im Westen nichts Neues”
.
148', SAM 16.
From:
Edward Berger.
With:
Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Daniel Brühl, Aaron Hilmer.
Available on:
Netflix.
look too
20 secrets of Matilda, which premieres a musical on Netflix
Bard, or the crack movie coming to Netflix