Fine film, better book

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2002)

Read the book. Excerpts are adapted into dialogue for the film with somewhat stunted results; people just don't talk that way. Nonetheless, an extremely advanced film for its time, superior to most war films of any time. The battle sequences are vivid and realistic. (And, I might add, considering practical film effects of the time, probably much more like actual live fire exercises than most of the actors would have liked.) People are being a little lazy in their political commentary on the film, though, extrapolating from a legitimate expose of the grim reality of war and its effect on men and societies to a naive questioning of the occasional necessity of war itself. War is hell, Sherman said, but on to Atlanta he drove anyway. Surely no one thankful for their freedoms and privileges in the U.S. alone can unhypocritically indict war as a last resort for the liberation and preservation of liberty and men's souls. Peace and unity at the expense of human dignity are worthless. Let's not forget that in avoiding the calamity of war, which All Quiet is so effective in portraying, as much as we can.