ALL QUIET ON THE WEWSTERN FRONT (2022)

Handsomely produced, physically impressive, this remake of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel, an early Talkie triumph for Lewis Milestone in 1930, is this year’s prestige disappointment.  It starts well enough as young Paul Bäumer (Remarque’s alter-ego) and friends sign up in their German town for an already stalemated war only to be shocked by the reality of WWI combat, bleak living conditions, and the pointless nature of being used as cannon fodder in a war of attrition.  But somewhere between casting and story emphasis, something goes terribly wrong in what was designed to be a more German-specific look at what had always been a German POV story, anyway.  Key missteps of commission & omission include top brass Armistice conferences and the loss of Paul’s haunted return home on short leave.  (The latter the very heart of Remarque’s novel.)  And worse to come as writer/director Edward Berger goes all Steven Spielberg on us as the Armistice is about to go into effect on the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month/1918 when (SPOILER ALERT!) a vainglorious Captain sends hundreds of new recruits and the few vets not fast enough to have taken off, on one final territorial thrust for the honor of the Fatherland.  And only fifteen minutes of war left!  An actual ticking clock adding suspense.  After two years at the front, Paul’s being stabbed in the back; that’s literally stabbed in the back.  (Well, bayoneted.)  Left as a beautified death-mask in plaster dust; eyes & mouth inauthentically shut, posed as if to complete a Pietà.  Remarque’s novel doesn’t end on Armistice Day or even in November, let alone with a huge battle sequence. ‘He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.’  Death coming not with a bang, but a whimper.  An unremarkable death on an unremarkable day.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: The 1930 version, if not without Early Talkie awkwardness in its dialogue scenes, remains a stunning achievement.  READ ALL ABOUT IT: Particularly in how Milestone and cinematographer Karl Freund came up with something to visually match the devastating final two lines from the novel.  A fine chapter in Kevin Brownlow’s THE WAR, THE WEST AND THE WILDERNESS.