Revisiting my review of “All Quiet On The Western Front”
Now that the film remake of “All Quiet On The Western Front” has this week won seven BAFTA Awards, I think it’s a good time to revisit my review of the work to which I’ve now add a footnote.
I’ve not read the novel by Erich Maria Remarque (1929) but I have seen the Academy Award-winning film version (1930) and, following a recommendation from my brother, I was determined to see this new German-language adaptation on the big screen even though it is a Netflix production. I’m pleased that I did because the cinematography is wonderful and a cinema showing maximises the impact of this powerful work.The director Edward Berger and the cast – the focus is on young Felix Kammerer as the 17 year old soldier Paul Bäumer – are German, but the film was shot in the Czech Republic and most of the technical team were Czech. The depiction of the appalling life in the trenches and the terrifying attacks over ‘no man’s land’ are brilliantly done and I was particularly moved by details like the collection of ‘dog’s tags’ from the dead and the recycling of uniforms from the deceased.
Opening in the spring of 1917, the narrative concludes with the peace ‘negotiations’ of November 1917 – which was not in the novel but provides historic context – and underlines the hopeless position of the German politicians and the hardline posture of the French military. The film is a tough watch with considerable violence and brutality but it seems that every generation has to be reminded that war really is hell.
Footnote: Although this film has been very well-received outside Germany and it has won many international awards, interestingly in Germany itself it has had a more mixed assessment. This is largely because this version of the novel departs significantly from the original source material – which is a standard text in many German schools – especially in the final scenes of the death of the central character. In fact, the original screenplay was not by a German or in German, but by Scottish professional triathlete Lesley Paterson who wrote it in English.