World War I was modern in weaponry and scope but almost postmodern in its absurdity.
Years of industrial-scale slaughter wiped out nearly an entire generation of men in the 1910s while accomplishing almost nothing of geopolitical significance — except of course for ravaging Europe and sowing the conditions for fascism across the continent.
Reflecting on the war with a century of hindsight uncovers very little in its trenches besides blood, despair, and a screaming moral vacuum at the heart of the whole enterprise.
This is probably why the Great War, as it was originally called, is rarely explored in the realm of mainstream movies, at least relative to more narratively comprehensible conflicts such as World War II, the American Civil War or even Vietnam.
The few projects World War I has inspired in recent years vary in quality and approach, and often demonstrate how sharply the aesthetics of Hollywood storytelling are at odds with the reality of what happened.
Peter Jackson’s great 2019 documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old,” used colorized film footage from the war to craft tangible, heartbreaking portraits of the men — kids, really — who would never come home. I’m also a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2004 film “A Very Long Engagement,” which used the war mostly as a backdrop for a sweeping romance.
World War I was the setting for much of the 2017 superhero blockbuster “Wonder Woman,” which felt incongruous and a little wrong. And I haven’t seen Steven Spielberg’s 2011 film “War Horse,” but it appears to be a feel-good WWI movie involving some kind of heroic horse?
The 2019 Sam Mendes film “1917” won several Academy Awards and was notable for its use of long-take shots in which trench-warfare sequences appeared to unfold in real time. Yet its ambitious technical achievements and visual beauty seemed almost distasteful considering the gruesome subject matter.
More recently, “All Quiet On the Western Front,” a German film based on the famous 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque, was released to Netflix in October 2022. It has attracted fresh interest thanks to a tally of Oscar nominations including best picture and adapted screenplay, plus nods in technical categories such as sound, cinematography and production design.
The film, directed by Edward Berger, is indeed impressive on all of these levels. Like “1917,” it is exquisitely photographed, but what its skillful imagery depicts is horrifying.
This tonal contras t is visible from the opening shot, which shows a lush forest foregrounding majestic mountains at sunrise. A mist clears, and the soundtrack fills with gun and artillery fire upon a field already strewn with corpses. The bullets rain down indiscriminately, some finding the ground, some striking people who are already dead.
We soon meet a young German soldier named Heinrich (Jakob Schmidt), moments before he’s killed during a hopeless charge into the “no man’s land” separating the German and French trenches.
He’s hauled away, and Berger’s camera follows as his uniform is removed, cleaned, sewn up and handed to another young soldier, Paul (Felix Kammerer), likewise unaware of the position he’s assumed on this conveyor belt of death. Paul and his school pals march cheerfully toward the front, singing patriotic songs, oblivious to the carnage awaiting them.
Reality asserts itself quickly. Around them, troops are gunned down en masse or slowly bleed out alone. They choke to death on mud or gas. They’re crushed beneath tank treads. They’re bayoneted in desperate hand-to-hand combat. They scream for their mothers while limbs are amputated.
For the soldiers, rare reprieve from the violence comes in the form of camaraderie between countrymen, the price for which often is watching a friend get blown to pieces by an enemy shell.
The only real breathers for viewers are scenes where generals and politicians gather in plush rooms, drinking tea and debating maneuvers that will cost thousands (eventually millions) of young lives. The commentary is not subtle, because it really can’t be.
Those negotiations lead to a tragic climax just moments before the armistice of 1918 goes into effect. The scene, like many parts of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” takes some liberties with the historical timeline, but it’s in service of a worthwhile point, which is that there never was a point.