THE Anti-War Message Film

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2005)

Technically advanced by the looks of it. The camera swoops above the trenches and below people's knees, unlike the films released before this where the camera was mostly stagnant. The unpolished black and white imagery looks as if I'm looking at actual newsreels of WWI battle. Interesting thing: there's no background music here. It's either silence or the sound of constant bombardment. The acting is fantastic. Perhaps not as natural as it is in today's movies but the important thing is that the performances fit the overall texture of the film. Every soldier is fleshed out. I didn't feel that swell of emotion I was hoping for but there are images that stayed with me long after the sign read THE END. Images like a soldier's disembodied hands hanging from wire, Lew Ayres making a speech to the next generation of soldiers, and him reaching for the butterfly at the end. Brilliant.