![]() ![]() In a film with no obvious warmth or lightness, his authentic presence gives the film a beating heart and soul. The talented newcomer has a malleable face that abruptly morphs from wide-eyed schoolboy optimist to tortured soul. Making his screen debut as Paul is the gut-wrenching Kammerer. ![]() The talks are a needed respite, but also the least successful aspect of the movie. Occasionally the carnage is broken up with somber ceasefire negotiations between the Kaiser and France. Felix Kammerer makes an impressive screen debut as Paul. Gregarious generals don’t draw up ingenious plans and there is no nervous anticipation for the next frightening encounter. The shell-shocked realization brings to mind reports of young Russian soldiers, who had no idea they were being sent off to an actual war in Ukraine.īerger blends the fighting into a congealed mass of ceaseless, bloody conflict. enthusiastically enlist.Īlmost immediately upon arriving on the battlefield, though, Paul comes face to face with constant death and agony. “The Kaiser needs soldiers - not children!” he shouts to smiles and rapturous applause from students. The grotesque and traumatizing reality of war was not what Paul expected to find after his teacher, Kantorek, extolled the virtues of fighting for the fatherland. That horrible fact is nodded to in another scene, when Paul’s pal Kat (Albrecht Schuch) distraughtly observes a room littered with his compatriot’s corpses, and says, “Soon, Germany will be empty.” Tjaden (Edin Hasanović) fights alongside Paul in “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Reiner Bajo Much of a generation of Europeans was needlessly lost to the violence. “All Quiet” makes the point, just as Sam Mendes’ “1917” so memorably did in 2019, that the Great War was fought by kids with their whole lives in front of them. Scared and ashamed, Paul begins to clean the soldier’s face. Shattering stuff. The man wheezes and convulses for minutes. During the most harrowing scene of director Edward Berger’s film, German soldier Paul (Felix Kammerer) repeatedly stabs a gun-toting French solider to save his own life. The movie also doesn’t play up the enemy. The key difference - and this is true to the book - is that there is no bravery or valor here, no rousing soundtrack of bold victory, nothing remotely good. Rated R (strong bloody war violence and grisly images.) On Netflix.Īs we’ve come to expect from this well-worn genre, armies pour out of the trenches to find bombs and bullets, and characters we love die along the way. ![]()
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