A One Mann’s Movies review of “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022).
(Original Title: Im Westen nichts Neues)
The biggest surprise for me in this year’s BAFTA nominations was the major snub for “The Fabelmans” (as Best Film) and Steven Spielberg (as Best Director). Because I still expect it to WIN the Oscar, for heaven’s sake! But another surprise was that “All Quiet on the Western Front” picked up 14 (FOURTEEN!) nominations. (This is two behind the record holder (“Gandhi”) and equals the second place holder (“Atonement”)).
So, having quietly ignored it on Netflix for many weeks (waiting for the “right time” when I felt emotionally brave enough) the BAFTAs prompted me to give it a watch. And very powerful it is too.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
It’s the spring of 1917. Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) is a fresh-faced young German who, caught up by peer-pressure and brim-full of the Fatherland’s propaganda, fakes his father’s signature and gets sent off to the Western Front. There he discovers the true horror of the war, and it becomes a life and death struggle for him and his comrades.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC: “Strong threat, violence, injury detail, disturbing scenes”).
Talent:
Starring: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Moritz Klaus, Adrian Grünewald, Edin Hasanovic, Daniel Brühl.
Directed by: Edward Berger.
Written by: Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson & Ian Stokell. (Based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque).
Twitter Handles: #allquietmovie.
“Some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over. It is now!”. (Source: Netflix).
“All Quiet on the Western Front” Review:
Positives:
- No film about the First World War should shirk away from the horrors of the trenches, and this one certainly does not. It is relentlessly stressful for most of its two-and-a-half hour run time. At times, it is darn right brutal on the senses, and makes “1917” look like a Bridget Jones movie. A hand-to-hand scene in a shell-hole with a young French soldier is as emotionally traumatising as that slow-motion knife fight in “Saving Private Ryan”. And don’t get me started on flame-throwers!
- Edward Berger nicely reflects the appalling conveyor belt of young German lives being led to the slaughter through a clever post-credit scene. We see the bullet-ridden and blood-soaked uniforms of the fallen being laundered, repaired and recycled for the next set of lambs. “This jacket belongs to someone else” says Paul at the fitting, pointing out the name tag. “It was probably too small for the fellow. Happens all the time”, replies the recruiting officer, ripping out the name tag and dropping it on the floor, where dozens of name tags already lie. Chilling.
- By following Paul’s tight-knit set of close school chums through their endeavours (some don’t last long at all) we feel how Paul’s own humanity starts to ebb away, as he becomes more of an automaton-like cog in the German war machine.
- Aside from Daniel Brühl, who plays the German’s chief armistice negotiator Matthias Erzberger, all the rest of the cast were unknown (at least to this UK reviewer). But Felix Kammerer and Albrecht Schuch do a fabulous acting job in playing Paul and Stanislaus. Kammerer’s performance is made all the more remarkable by the fact that this is his DEBUT film performance (he has only one other TV credit to his name, but experience in stage acting). Schuch has got a BAFTA nom, but I think Kammerer could justly feel a bit ripped-off.
- The cinematography (by James Friend) is wonderfully bleak and blue-toned, adding greatly to the mood of the piece. It’s been nominated for a BAFTA already, and I would predict it might get an Oscar nomination too. The special effects crew (led by Markus Frank, Kamil Jaffar, Viktor Muller and Frank Petzold) are also nominated, and justly so.
Negatives:
- The film tries to create a “Band of Brothers” style of emotional intensity, pitching a “will they/won’t they” survival game for Paul’s school friends, his new friends met along the way, like cobbler Stanislaus Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) and, indeed, Paul himself. But I felt that the script never quite nailed that fully down: compared to “Band of Brothers”, I didn’t quite feel the same emotional attachment to the individuals as the losses came. “Band of Brothers” was of course a mini-series of 10 hours, so it had more much more scope to achieve that. But I felt that, as a comparable feature film, Spielberg still did it better in “Saving Private Ryan”.
- The atonal music by Volker Bertelmann has been nominated for the BAFTA for Original Score. But I tended to find it rather too intrusive in places for my taste.
Summary Thoughts on “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Brutal. Visceral. Heartbreaking. These are the sort of adjectives I’d use to summarise this movie. But it’s a movie that I thought was technically excellent, and a worthy watch. However. like “Schindler’s List”, it’s one I’ll probably only ever end up watching ONCE!
And, yes, I agree that it is worthy of receiving multiple award nominations. The BAFTAs it’s up for, by the way, are:
- Best Film
- Best Film Not in the English Language
- Best Director
- Best Supporting Actor (Albrecht Schuch)
- Original Score
- Best Sound
- Best Screenplay (Adapted)
- Best Production Design
- Best Make Up & Hair
- Best Costume Design
- Best Cinematography
- Best Casting
- Best Editing, and
- Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects
While it is still an excellent and gripping movie, it did have its faults. Thus, I suspect, this is one that despite making a lot of noise with the BAFTA nominations will not walk away with that much on February 19th. (I’d guess at probably the “Best Film Not In The English Language” BAFTA and a few of the technical awards…. possibly including “Make Up and Hair”).
Trailer for “All Quiet on the Western Front”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf8EYbVxtCY .
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