#MovieReview: All Quiet on the Western Front a disturbingly realistic portrait of WWI [Watch]
The film follows a group of four young German boys in their teens, who lie about their age to join the effort and play their role for the Kaiser.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a brutal, harrowing portrayal of the depravity that accompanies warfare.
The latest release from Netflix sees a retelling of the final few years of World War I, this time through the lens of the Germans.
Based on the 1929 novel of the same name and directed by Edward Berger, the film is slow-moving and occasionally beautiful, but never turns away from showing the terrible reality of life in the trenches.
With weapons technology that had advanced enough to deliver untold suffering, and healthcare that was far behind, this was among the most barbaric conflicts in history.
The ever-present spectre of war makes these stories timeless, with most of history doomed to repeat itself at some point, as seen recently in Ukraine.
Young men are but numbers on a map, reshuffled and rearranged by politicians as if playing a game of Risk.
There is very little that is new in All Quiet, and anti-war films have been a staple of cinema for almost a century, but they never fail to be relevant.
Divisive nationalist rhetoric may now find itself on partisan news channels and message boards rather than beer halls, but the end result stays the same.
Spoilers to follow
All Quiet follows a group of four young German boys in their teens, who lie about their age to join the effort and play their role for the Kaiser.
They are hailed as heroes on admission, but soon get broken down to nothing when sent into the heart of the trenches on the western front between Germany and France.
Almost 14 million people would die here between 1914-1918, with only a few combined square kilometres of land gained on either side.
Any glimpse of fraternal levity and hope, as seen in Saving Private Ryan or M.A.S.H, where soldiers laugh and play cards between the bombs, is quickly snuffed out in All Quiet.
These are boys whose entire future has been tainted, if they have a future at all.
Like the soldiers, there is no let off for the audience – the looming armistice is but a pipe dream, a gilded promise.
When it finally arrives there is no joy or relief, just the bleakest understanding that finally, it is over.
All Quiet can be found on Netflix. It is in German with subtitles, and dubbed options are available.
Rated 18 for scenes of Intense Violence and Suicide.
4/5.
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