All Quiet on the Western Front

War is a futile endeavor. In the fifty years I have been alive, I cannot remember a time when there wasn’t one being waged somewhere in the world. We raise our children up in a world filled with it, knowing that there may come a day when the military draft is reinstated and those sons, our legacies, may be conscripted into fighting for a cause they may not even support. And all the while, those on the other side of the fence are simply doing the same thing. We look at the enemy as faceless adversaries, those deserving of being gunned down in the battlefield, and they are being taught the same thing about us.

The reality is that most of them are just like us, conscripted to fight by a government that cares more about gains than about the losses; leaders who, when faced with an armistice, send troops in to fight to the very last second just to gain a little ground and be able to say they didn’t run home with their tails between their legs. The sheer stupidity of that mindset makes me angry, yet there are always people in high military positions that think exactly that way and cannot properly function in life unless there is a war going on. The loss of life is meaningless to such men.

In 1929, Erich Maria Remarque published his novel Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front). This semi-autobiographical novel was a look at the German soldiers who fought in the Great War and their extreme physical and psychological trauma. It also looked at the detachment they felt from civilian life upon returning home. This novel was billed by some as “the greatest war novel of all time” but was also viewed by some as highly controversial, those who favored the war, especially the Nazi Party, who were rising out of the ashes as Germany sought to rebuild itself. 

The following year, Lewis Milestone, a Russian-American film director, adapted the novel into one of the first Outstanding Production Oscar-winning films. Naturally, this film was banned in Nazi Germany for being unpatriotic and promoting the idea that war was a bad thing, a waste of the youth of Germany. World War II was not yet upon Europe, but even in 1930, it felt inevitable, and anything spreading anti-war sentiment was considered traitorous and banned in Germany. In 1979, it was adapted again, this time as a television movie. This version won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Made for Television. 

Then in 2022, nearly a hundred years after it first hit theaters, All Quiet on the Western Front was once again adapted into a major motion picture. This adaptation, a German-made film, would follow in the footsteps of the previous two adaptations by being heralded at the major award shows. It would end up being nominated for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards, though it was beaten by the multiverse comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

Three adaptations of the same novel, all heralded as being at the top of their game. That is an impressive feat not matched by any other films in the history of the Academy Awards. Watching each of these, the same DNA runs through each of them. Though there are some major differences, the central themes remain intact. These are essentially films about young men being enticed by a sense of pride and excitement to join the war effort, not realizing exactly what that will actually be like. 

The war is being glamorized through their teachers, the recruiters, even some of the parents, presenting armed service as a duty and a privilege. Because of this, the young men join up excitedly, dreaming of valor and glory. The realities are much less exciting, though. The reality is that war is a dirty business, and the young are mere cannon fodder for use by their government in a vain attempt to gain ground that hasn’t significantly shifted sides in years. Millions died for what little was gained on the Western Front.

We are introduced to a small group of these young men, including Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) and his schoolmates: Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer), Franz Müller (Moritz Klaus), and Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grünewald). Paul, who will be our primary protagonist, is just 17, and the four enthusiastically enlist in the Imperial German Army. Upon enlistment, they are deployed in northern France near La Malmaison, where they are befriended by an older and more experienced soldier, Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), a man with a family back home and a great fear that he will not be able to reacclimatize when the war ends. 

Meanwhile, General Friedrichs (Devid Striesow) accompanies Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl), German State Secretary, and a German delegation bound for the Forest of Compiègne for ceasefire negotiations. Friedrichs, though, opposes a surrender, seeing no value in peace talks as Germany has been without war for more than fifty years, leaving him without the “glory” experienced by his father and grandfather. He orders an attack on the French lines even as the delegation is to arrive. 

When Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates, Erzberger receives instructions to accept the Allied terms for surrender. The ceasefire is signed and will go into effect at 11:00 a.m. General Friedrichs, determined to gain as much ground as possible before it goes into effect, orders an attack to begin at 10:45 a.m., looking for one final German victory before the armistice is official. 

17 million were killed on the Western Front, all in service of a border that was barely moved. What a colossal waste of life. So many of our young died for a ridiculous cause. Yet there is always someone like General Friedrichs who sees nothing but glory and an honorable death in battle. The film spends little explaining the politics of World War I; it’s not a film about that, after all. This is more about those who were brainwashed into enlisting and then the realities of what they signed up for. Paul forges a parent’s signature on the enlistment form because he is underage, egged on by his school friends who have all signed up excitedly, not comprehending just what it is they are getting into. It doesn’t take long for them to realize the reality of it all and soon one of the friends has been killed senselessly. 

I commented in my review for the original film that it was brutal and violent for a movie from 1930. There are aspects of that film that would have been excised out by the Hays Code just a few years later but have managed to remain intact for modern viewers. This 2022 adaptation is taking a note from that earlier version and boldly depicting wartime violence in a realistic manner without going overboard the way Hacksaw Ridge did. This allows the brutality of battle to be both visceral and effective, not cartoonish. You will feel the gunshots and the explosions without being inundated with flying limbs and exploding heads. There are plenty of gunshot wounds and other such gore but it never plays gratuitous. More than any other war movie, including Saving Private Ryan, this one sells being there amongst the cacophony. 

As this was a German production, it is natively in that language. Perhaps sensing that too many people wouldn’t sit through a nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long foreign language film, it was also dubbed into English, and both versions were dropped on Netflix, where the film debuted in the fall of 2022. The best way to experience this film is in the native German. There is nothing inherently wrong with the English dub, but it does pull you out of the film a little when the vocals don’t quite match the visuals. 

This is a rare example of a remake being as good, if not better, than the original. Director Edward Berger, along with screenwriters Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, have taken the basics of the original story and crafted a film about humanity and the inhumanity of war as seen through the eyes of those on the ground being asked to sacrifice themselves for next to nothing. This is a powerful drama with implications that far outreach the scope of World War I. This story could be told about any war, justified or otherwise, with very little alteration. I have heard, in reference to Vietnam, that that war was considered so bad that no one would want to go to war again after it. Of course, that didn’t happen. As long as there are men like General Friedrichs (or Patton, or any number of known military leaders I could name here), there will be senseless wars over resources or land or religious ideologies. It’s the world we live in, and there is always someone willing to sacrifice the lives of others in the name of glory.

Academy Award Nominations: 

Best Picture: Malte Grunert

Best Adapted Screenplay: Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, and Ian Stokell

Best International Feature Film: Germany (won)

Best Original Score: Volker Bertelmann (won)

Best Sound: Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel, and Stefan Korte

Best Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper (won)

Best Cinematography: James Friend (won)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová

Best Visual Effects: Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank, and Kamil Jafar

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Release Date: October 28, 2022

Running Time: 147 minutes

Rated R

Starring: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, and Daniel Brühl

Directed by: Edward Berger