All Quiet on the Western Front (The New One)

All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen Nichts Neues) (2022)

Runtime: 148 minutes

Directed by: Edward Berger

Starring: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Moritz Klaus, Adrian Grunewald

From: Various companies, although of course this was watched on Netflix

Perhaps I should watch war movies more often; after all, many of them I’ve given good or better ratings to on Letterboxd and the original 1930 film based on Erich Maria Remarque’s novel is excellent. In fact, my subscribing to Netflix again in March was due in part to finally see this highly-regarded German version which was released last year and won the Oscar for Best International Feature. It was worth the wait.

For those unfamiliar, the film is a quite powerful anti-war treatise. Germans in World War I are followed; that isn’t as awkward as it sounds as most of the subjects we follow are teen boys who are quite exuberant and filled with nationalistic pride as they sign up for what they suspect will only be a small amount of conflict. By now, I’ll assume that most are familiar w/ how nasty, how grimy, how dirty, how muddy, smoke-clogged and brutal trench warfare during that conflict was. Those boys were thrown into that world and that was a nightmare for them. Even outside that setting, life isn’t much easier although at least the main teen we follow develops a camaraderie with some colorful characters.

The film is an unflinching look at the horrors of war; how pointless it all was and how stubborn some military leaders were was ultimately a critical plot point. There are gruesome moments although it was done solely for impact rather than gratuitous shock value. There are plenty of deaths although the most impactful one (and arguably the best scene overall) was a single stabbing. The acting, direction, story and cinematography are all top-notch.

The score… it was unexpected. Usually it was pastoral which was fitting for the predominantly rural settings. The snare drum that’s heard sometimes for the purpose of punctuating a moment is understandable; what sounded like foghorn blasts—it was like I was back watching Inception. Yet ultimately I was accepting of that, and those aural moments only occurred a few times. Overall, those that are fascinated even by the harshest anti-war films and can handle extraordinarily rough moments on celluloid (or are like me and have seen at least one previous adaptation of the novel) will especially be well-served to see the foreign film that won 4 Oscars in total-a rare feat, indeed.