Netflix’s Newest War Film Demands Attention

Review: All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

By Sara Ciplickas

Often in our schools, we are conditioned to believe that there were clear lines between villains and heroes in the great wars. There is a natural form of sympathy that we as Americans have developed for the Allied powers, and our films, in turn, exemplify our bias. War films, often glorifying violence and battle, carve the lines deeper by giving definitive protagonists and antagonists, more often than not with the Americans or British as the winners and the Germans as the losers. Netflix’s newest war drama, All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger, is a first hand look at the so-called “villains” of World War I following four German students who enlist in the army. Berger’s film is an honest, disgustingly beautiful look at the horrors of war reminding the world that there are no winners, only great loss.

Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) and his classmates, Albert, Franz, and Ludwig, enlist in the army to serve their fatherland. Their eagerness and excitement is quickly destroyed as their first battle shows them the reality of war. The film chooses Paul as its central character, who watches his fellow regiment mates suffer from battles, trenches, starvation, angry farmers, and governmental abuse while he himself is subject to unimaginable trauma. Berger doesn’t hold back as we are forced into the trenches with Paul and his mates and we experience bloody, horrific battles between young boys. Berger strategically makes some drastic cuts between the battlefields and the safe, excessive offices of politicians who were fighting the war from their desks and dinner tables.

It's a bit ironic that war movies yield some of the best cinematography I have seen. James Friend’s range of shots from landscapes to close-ups was breathtaking. The camera refused to look away from the absolute horrors of battle and their aftermath. It lingered as we watched Paul, a young student, turn into a broken man. Additionally, Volker Bertelmann’s score was horrifically wonderful, making the film even more of a traumatic experience. Kammerer, who made his cinematic debut in this film, offered a vulnerable performance that demanded us to realize that he was just as much a victim as the men he killed in battle.

All Quiet on the Western Front, adapted from a book written by a German veteran of World War I, forces us to sit next to and fight with the Germans during the Great War. We do not see a plethora of German flags or the country itself. Their uniforms are dirty and gray and offer no definitive proof that the soldiers we are watching are German, or French, or American until they speak. The film is about soldiers. Boys who were fighting a war that they didn’t understand for politicians who were able to remain safe by their fireplaces with an excess of food, warmth, and safety. The lines between good and evil, carved by western cinema, is filled with the blood Berger shows in this film. There is no good in evil on the battlefield. Only boys trying to stay alive as they watch their friends perish. The only true evil in this film are the governments the soldiers represent, but we all watch who suffers.

In the wake of the war in Ukraine and the various conflicts that have plagued the lives of millions over the past few years, it is clear that we, as a globe, have not learned our lesson about the dangers of extreme nationalism and the horrors of war. All Quiet on the Western Front is a triumphant film that demands our attention and reflection, reminding the world that their war and the ones currently being fought, are between governments at the expense of the people.