Riot’s Movie Reviews: All Quiet on the Western Front
Mentally and emotionally, this back-to-back book/movie review endeavor was a huge mistake. It would be unfair to say that other films and novels haven’t properly tackled the trauma associated with war but besides The Hurt Locker, I don’t think I’ve ever left a wartime film feeling so heavy from what was portrayed. Certainly, we can point to WWII films that have tackled weightier subjects (Schindler’s List immediately comes to mind) but having a story maintain directly on a single soldier and watching the degradation of his mind/spirit on the battlefield is something I haven’t really seen done to this degree before. Where a large amount of wartime films are undergirded with hopeful plot lines (patriotism, comradery, etc.), All Quiet on the Western Front is having none of it. Much like its literary predecessor, the horrors of the battlefront come right out of the gate swinging, grabbing a hold of the audience and forcing it down into the cold, muddy, death-ridden chasms of the WWI tranches.
One point I’d like to get out of the way first (and as a warning to those who “don’t like to read”) is that having this adaptation be entirely in German and led by German director Edward Berger, was 1,000% the right call. Unlike the 1930’s version, having the story being told from German actors (Daniel Brühl fans will be excited for his appearance) brought an authenticity to the story that made all of the pages I read earlier this week feel profoundly tangible. There’s often a debate about whether or not a person should read the book before the film and vice versa. In this case, I would definitely recommend the former. Having the book fresh in my mind helped maintain context throughout watching the film, allowing for a rounded-out understanding of the depth of emotion being expressed by the actors. This is often one of the issues that comes to light in film adaptations of novels. Because an actor can only do so much, the complexities of their emotions in a given scene aren’t always entirely fleshed out. It opens these films up to criticisms much like this one(he did have one point I very much agreed on, which I’ll explain later), where a very good film can be accused of being something that it’s not. Now don’t get me wrong, as I stated in my previous review, I very much believe American cinema has a dread fascination with war that certainly needs to be curtailed. But I think the stellar performances in this movie were more than enough to encapsulate the purpose of Remarque’s original masterpiece of a novel.
SPOILER ALERT
So what made this film so compelling? Much like its source material, it was absolutely haunting. For the most part, it adhered very well to the original writing but there were some key alterations. One respective plot divergence in the film involves the death of Tjaden (Edin Hasanovic), who in the book, is one of the few soldiers to survive the conflict out of Paul’s (Felix Kammerer, this kid was the real deal) closest wartime comrades. But by having him die in a horribly gruesome and depressing way, the film actually exemplifies responsible creative licensing, by slightly altering plot lines to enhance the overall message. The main purpose of the book (as I saw it) was to solidify the tragedy of war and what it does to the people who are sent into conflict. “Film Tjaden” takes over the fate of “book Kropp” (Aaron Hilmer), who’s leg is wounded and eventually amputated. The core belief of the two characters remains the same, as both are depicted as saying they’d rather die than be a cripple. But while “book Kropp” is eventually able to work through his loss and gets discharged for home, “film Tjaden” takes matters into his own hands and gives the audience what is arguably the most horrifying death of the film. “Film Kropp’s” fate is no less gruesome, falling victim to the French army’s flamethrower division. Although I can respect the script writers’ ingenuity to boost the message, deepening the tragedy really had me bummed out by the film’s end. Paul’s journey in the book was dreadful enough as it was, but having him be a direct witness to each one of his friends’ deaths might be pushing it a little far. My emotions aside, I guess that’s really the point.
Another of the film’s additions that wasn’t necessarily part of the novel canon was depicting the “behind the scenes” actions of the German and French politicians responsible for ironing out the cessation of the war. Being a theme that I explored in my book review, I recognized that it was a bit of a detriment to the story to be a little thin on this. But, considering Paul is a foot soldier, he was never going to be privy to any of the political moves made by the nation’s representatives. By adding these characters in, the audience is further moved by the senselessness of war. These leaders are portrayed in all the ways you’d expect of the upper-class, playing their war games with the lives of men and youth. They’re shown complaining about the freshness of bread, when their soldiers are starving. They succumb to pride and give in to plots of revenge for the political and ideological slights of the opposing delegates while their men freeze and beg to go home. They are even inconvenienced by a minor toilet mishap while their militias vomit and defecate in open trenches they’ll inevitably soon sleep in.
Now, in agreement with another reviewer I linked above, there was a detraction from the film that I think very much took away from the main character’s journey that would have really sealed the whole thing together. In the novel, when given leave from the war, Paul returns home to find himself completely and utterly changed by his experience on the battlefield. He arrives as an emotional foreigner, so haunted by what he has seen and done in war that he doesn’t know what to do with himself when given even the briefest grasps of tentative “peace.” He even visits with his old teacher, the man responsible for driving his ideological goal to enlist for service, only to find he can’t grasp even a semblance of the dogma that brought him to the battlefield. He is irrevocably changed, essentially sealing his fate long before he returns to the front. He can never be the ideological schoolboy again, he’s a soldier now. This detraction, in my opinion, was not enough to negatively alter the message of the film and I honestly think even had the scenes been shot, it would’ve been equally difficult to convey the depth of emotions that are more easily fleshed out in writing rather than acting. As it stands, it’s hard to imagine that group of actors putting forth anything better than what they already did.
Riot’s Rating: 9/10: All Quiet on the Western Front is certainly a book and film that is worth checking out. The book is a very fast read and I definitely recommend giving it a go before seeing this movie, but it won’t hurt your viewing if you don’t.
P.S. Since it wasn’t pertinent to any point I was making, I didn’t get to mention how incredible Albrecht Schuch was as Kat. Unbelievable performance.
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