All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): Eitan's Take

This is undoubtedly one of the best anti-war movies ever made, as well as one of the superlative war stories ever committed to film. I would contend that it is also one of the best films ever made. Tracing the lives of half a dozen German teenage boys from their bloodthirsty school days to their deaths (most of them) and their utter disillusionment in the face of horror, All Quiet on the Western Front is unflinching, brutal, disturbing, somber, and very, very powerful. Certain scenes will come back to me for a long time to come: a patient and mournful interlude where a German soldier spends the night in a muddy pit with a French soldier he has just stabbed and killed, a horrifying shot of two blown-off arms still clutching onto a barbed-wire fence, and main character Paul's weary wanderings through a life back home where he clearly does not fit.

All Quiet on the Western Front is directed with a sort of angry grace. With no attention to formal plot structure, we lose track of the time our protagonists have spent in the war -- then, we are thrown out of the trenches and pummeled with a merciless, shocking battle sequence with ambitious cinematography and an aura of true sadness that you just can't feel outside of the context of watching such a wasteful and worthless war. The movie is not hopeful, but it is thoughtful and perceptive about how to portray the gradual extermination -- both physical and emotional -- of the young men we follow. By the time Paul shows up in his old classroom, with his old warmongering teacher, the bright-eyed students he sees in the classroom look like infants... and then we remember that he was no younger when he wandered into the war. Additionally, it was interesting to note that all the actors portraying German soldiers speak with the aw-shucks affect of 20th century American boys; this was no doubt on purpose, to remind us that the Germans were human too, and no different from the Americans and Brits they fought against.

A beautiful, powerful, sobering -- and absurdly well made -- film with an anti-war message to last through the ages. It isn't perfect, but it's essential watching for anyone who wants to see war cinema at its finest. 9/10

P.S. The mastery and potency of this film makes last year's winner (The Broadway Melody) look like phony kid stuff.