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

Wow. Okay. First thing that I think must be said is that this movie is clearly not only still relevant, but also still haunting. A good example: a shot in the first big front-line battle scene has an enemy fighter (Frenchman? Englishman?) grasping the fence, about to get into the German trenches, when a bomb goes off, and all that remains when the smoke clears is his hands, still grasping the fence. This movie is about half made up of incredible, powerful, gut-wrenching scenes. Still, I found the scenes in between long and at times boring. I also had trouble following characters, which didn't seem so important in the end when they all ended up either dead or back home with amputated legs. One very noteworthy detail about this movie is that the protagonists are the Germans. The German efforts seemed so much more fruitless because I knew all the while that they would lose, and many of those not killed in the war would end up starving to death in impoverished post-war Germany. Eitan pointed out that all the actors were very American and their dialogues were written very American as well. This was brilliant; the only times I remembered that the boys I was rooting for were German was when I saw their Pickelhaubes. For a movie in which I didn't know most of the characters' names, All Quiet on the Western Front had some of the most incredible ensemble character development I've seen. Notes to myself: Maybe I saw this movie when I was significantly younger, and it is why I have such a strange fear of butterflies. 9/10