In October 2022 Netflix released a German production of Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel, 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (Im Westen Nicht Neues, literally 'No news from the West'). All Quiet on the Western Front was mandatory reading in my high-school English literature class and I remember the story well. This is the third representation of Remarque's novel in movie form, the first being an American production in 1930, followed by a well-known TV movie in 1979 starring Richard Thomas of 'Little House on the Prairie' fame. This new German production recieved numerous positive reviews from critics and viewers so I was keen to see it. I'll say right at the start - I am not a fan of this movie.
Despite what many critics have claimed, this is not a faithful retelling of Remarque's story. Sure, it has the same name and several scenes have been lifted from the book, but this is in fact a completely different movie. Sure, this is an anti-war movie like it's namesake, but it's really a story of the tragic waste of soldier's lives while politicians talk and argue about national pride. An entirely new sub-plot has been introduced into this story of the German ambassadors of the Social Democrat Party traveling by train to meet the French and Allied delegations at Compienge to negotiate an armistice. This would have been a good story worth telling as its own movie, but ultimately its addition transforms Remarque's tale of Paul and fellow art students' descent into inhumanity through war into the background of the negotiators dilemma.
However, to tell this particular story the time of the novel has had to be changed from the beginning of the war to the end of the war. This is a critical shift in the narrative and it undermines the movie from the start. Remarque's novel starts in 1914 when the main character, Paul, is at school in the lead up to the war. Paul and his fellow students are whipped up into a patriotic frenzy by their teachers to join the army and teach the French a lesson. No one at this time knows the horrors of war and it's all a big adventure. The boys join up, are feted and cheered, go to basic training and then set off to the front with high hopes and enthusiasm, which is progressively destroyed as the war becomes a nightmare. That's the point of the story - youthful enthusiasm and potential corrupted and destroyed. The movie makers still have this scene of patriotic 'who-ha!' but it rings false because in 1917 and 18, no one in Germany could have had this patriotic ferver or have failed to understand how terrible the war was. Millions had already died, millions were disabled, Germany was blockaded and famine had killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. The country was exhausted and on the verge of mutiny. From the very beginning the movie is off tone and unrealistic.
This is a major problem with movies and television these days. No one seems prepared to support new and original stories, so successful, older source material that is familiar to audiences is pulled off the shelf and 'reimagined for modern audiences.' What this generally means is the name is used along with maybe one or two scenes in what is effectively a completely new movie. This serves no one. Fans of the original material are disappointed - or downright outraged - to see their movie/book/video game mutilated, while moderns audiences are shortchanged as they are sold a pale imitation in favour of 'the new thing.' More often than not the new version is terrible as modern script writers, producers and film makers are - generally speaking - shallow and talentless, with no respect for the source material or their audience.
My biggest criticism lies with the writing and the distortion of the story. The writers clearly have no idea about war or how the First World War was fought, envisaging it as little more than the soldiers from one side jumping out their trench and running across no-man's-land and being shot down, followed by the soldiers from the other side jumping out of their trench and running across no-man's-land and being shot down in their turn. It's moronic and it's not true. The whole sub-plot of the German general throwing his troops into pointless suicide attacks - all done without planning or purpose - just to avoid surrendering belongs in the BBC comedy series "Blackadder Goes Forth." It's entirely ridiculous and shows the film makers as fools who know nothing about the war.
"It rhymnes with clucking bell"
Many have commented on the movies high quality special effects. That is only to be expected however and in my opinion the special effects added little to the movie. The attack by French tanks with flamethrowers was overblown and mere spectacle. In Renmarque's novel, the death and destruction was not flashy but grim and random. No one died in huge set piece battles, but groveling in mud from a bayonet, bullet or shrapnel.
Once again modern film makers have taken on an important piece of work and shat all over it with their mediocrity and demand for spectacle. The original black and white film from 1930 is much better despite its age. Even the 1979 mini-series with John-boy from the Waltons and Ernest Borgnine is a better and more accurate version. Both are highly recommended.
And as always - read the book
I think this independent Australian production did a better job for a lot lower cost.
https://militarymuseum.blogspot.com/2024/03/before-dawn-2024-australian-first-world.html
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