Watched. My rating: 9.4/10.
After spending four months with Niffeneger's romance novel, The Time Traveler's wife, I dove in headfirst in Erich Maria Remarque's 1928 German novel, All Quiet on the Western Front and ended up bingeing it over a week as it became an instant favorite of mine and it reminded me of what truly great literature is capable of. So naturally I was pumped up to watch it's film adaptations, especially this one considering it has the advantage of modern technology over the previous iterations. And I'm so glad to announce that it not only met my expectations, but its also among the best films of this year.
The story follows Paul Baumer, a 19 year old who enlists in the army with his schoolmates as their teachers, parents, neighbors and the whole previous generation eggs them on in the name of glory, heroism, god and country. But the front has a different plan for them with its reality...
Right from the very first shot, we get a clear sense that Edward Berger (director) and the team aren't interested in repeating what's been done before, other than a reference to the 1930 production (A soldier lying g dead with his hands blown away, probably still clutching the barb wire). Lesley Paterson has changed the original story in her screenplay, enough to exclude the scenes which the Lewis Milestone's 1930 adaptation had already taken advantage of and adds an entirely new narrative which runs parallel to main action portraying the German and French delegates hashing out the terms for an armistice. This not only provides for a much better contextual understanding for the audience, but also a background to cut away to from the action sequences.
The film opens with serene shots of the woods and a mother fox feeding her pups in their burrow. The scene proceeds to hover over to a desolated land covered with dead bodies, dead horses, broken equipment, scattered guns artillery before dropping down in a trench where shells screech around them, clumps Earth rain down on the miserable soldiers as they yell and run up and down the line to climb over and attack the enemy. A scared young soldier somehow musters up enough strength to run towards the the direction of the bullets and, very soon, he bites the dust. His name was Heinrich.
The film cuts to black and the title comes on. Heinrich's uniform is taken off of him to be re-patched and his name tag is replaced with Paul's. We see women operating sewing machines which sound like the firing of a machine gun, implying how women, and every civilian, were serving at their own personal fronts. There's the individual's honor in war, in all its glory; one name replaced with the other.
That whole bit wasn't in the book and the fact that many such scenes and details are added which enrich the experience deserves all the praise its getting.
The cast is composed of mostly young talent, unknown talent which helps you focus on the story. Yes Daniel Bruhl is in this, the one and only Fredrick Zoller, but only because he produced it. But Felix Kammerer proves to be a very good Paul Baumer, lending himself to vulnerable innocence and hardened stature of veterans, and his chemistry with Albrecht Schuch, who plays Kat, provides for a rather touching relationship for the audience to relate to.
Now, to talk about the action sequences, we must address the chilling score by Volker Bertelmann. Volker has given us the best soundtrack of his career to this date. We enter the battlefield aurally before witnessing it visually by the threatening blares of the music which sound like something out of a monster movie and makes the horrors of war that much more palpable. And the action scenes themselves are incredible as well, with long takes and intimate shots of the characters, putting you right in the middle of the cross fire. It even made me flinch once. But the highlight of the film for me was the sequence in which the German forces encounter enemy tanks for the first time, only to be followed by flamethrowers. The visceral sound design surrounds you with all its creaks and groans of metal and wood, give the atmosphere a detailed texture. Its among the most anti-war action scenes of all time.
I'm not sure of the historical accuracy of the film overall, but it seems authentic enough for me to buy into its reality. But that's not the goal that it sets itself anyway. The aim was to encapsulate the dread, the paranoia, of being stuck in the trenches and it succeeds in doing so. It had my heart thumping in many scenes and I can't say that about many war movies.
It changes the ending from the book, and it still works. I think that the book had a better, bleaker conclusion which portrayed the pointlessness of war in a much more poetic sense, yet retaining a sense of realism. The film ditches realism at the very end to get a bit more satisfying ending for the audience. Again, it still works, but I prefer the book's version.
The film ended, credits flashed in silence and all I could hear was my own palpitation, before the rasping sounds of the harmonium came back, as if the ghosts of the past wars were breathing down our necks, like Gerard Duval, the Frenchman that Paul kills.
For me, a ten on ten film, a perfect film, is one in which I wouldn't change a single thing. And this one came very close to being one, but I have my issues with some of the editing choices in it. Many scenes are cut off just a few seconds earlier, which jarred me out of the movie. For example, the scene in which Paul and his friends find the company of young recruits they were looking for in a warehouse/factory, and the scene just cuts off. There's clearly some essential shots which didn't make the cut because of which the film feels just a tad incomplete. Perhaps adding those missing 10 to 15 minutes worth of footage would do wonders for the film, even though its runtime already sits at two and a half hours.
All Quiet on the Western Front will leave you dumbfounded. Clearly among the best of the year.
