All Quiet on the Western Front: War, More Hellish Than Ever

By Jim Slotek

Rating B+

There may be no more sorrowful gap between what audience and characters know than the trope in war movies where enlisted young men celebrate the looming opportunity to kick “enemy” asses.

In the case of the latest film incarnation of the German novel All Quiet on the Western Front (and the first to be filmed by actual Germans), the protagonist Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), who lied about his age to join, may in fact be wearing his fate.

In the film’s meat-grinder opening scene (the first of many) we briefly meet a soldier whose suicidal advance in this Great War battle ends with seamstresses repairing the bullet-holes in his and others’ uniforms.

Paul (Felix Kammerer) and his comrades simply trying to stay alive in All Quiet on the Western Front

When Paul is handed his uniform, it still has its previous owner’s nametag on it.

The message is clear. Paul and his pals are part of an assembly line of young bodies being sent to die by the millions in a war whose front barely moves.

Director Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front obviously has much more pyro and effects than the classic Hollywood film released 92 years ago. It also takes fewer stops for breath as the Germans begin their retreat from occupied Northern France amid flying body parts.

To be sure, there are some such stops – involving clumsy attempts to seduce local women, Paul and his rebellious friend Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) comically stealing livestock on the run from local farmers with shotguns, and forging the fatalistic camaraderie of doomed soldiers. This week, it makes me think of the Russian graffiti discovered in a village liberated by Ukraine near Kherson: “Whatever we do, we won’t leave this life alive.”

But generally, war is more hellish than ever in this update, which has been chosen as Germany’s submission to represent the country at the Academy Awards. Inevitably, Paul and his friends will either live to see others die, or become casualties themselves. By the end, soldiers are killed in what seems like every possible way, from flame throwers to a fork.

All Quiet on the Western Front does switch to a subplot from time to time, as government officials clash behind the scenes with generals who want to keep throwing what’s left of their youth on the funeral pyre. The officials recognize the War is effectively over, with Daniel Brühl playing the most sympathetic of the latter, charged with negotiating a humiliated ceasefire with the French.

Unfortunately, his efforts run against a rogue General Friedrich (Devid Striesow), who is damned if he’ll allow a bloodless peace. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the killing doesn’t stop, even when it’s supposed to. It’s two-and-a-half hours of inhumanity writ large.

Which is as it should be, I suppose. War movies as pure entertainment sometimes seem inappropriate so long as real wars exist. All Quiet on the Western Front exists to make the viewer uncomfortable – infinitely preferable to what the characters endure.

All Quiet on the Western Front. Directed by Edward Berger. Starring Felix Kammerer, Daniel Bruhl and Albrecht Schuch. Opens Wed., Oct. 12 in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and Fri., Oct. 12 at Vancouver’s VIFF Centre, expanding to other Canadian cities Oct. 21. Begins streaming on Netflix, Fri., Oct. 28.