One of the greatest war films committed to celluloid

Rating: 9/10 (15 April 2018)

The first 10 minutes of a film, in my opinion, is the most important part of any production. It establishes your characters, the tone, the setting, everything. The first 10 minutes of All Quiet on the Western Front is easily one of the best openings to any film I have ever seen in the past few years.
The doors open and the camera pushes in to reveal hordes of soldiers moving in formation, marching for their country. It dollies to the left, following them as if to show us what to expect for the next 2 hours. The pull back and reveal a professor sermoning to the young and impressionable minds of the new generation about how honorable it is to serve. The benefits, the courage, the prizes, the glory. Long, intimate close-ups of each student show every perspective. Crying, smiling, even the in-betweeners that don't know what to feel.
They take this romanticized idea of enlisting in the armed forces and sing their hearts out with glee and dance through their classroom screaming with joy in their wide-eyed childish wonderment. A wide shot as the boys leave their classroom and their chanting begins to fade out. An empty classroom only echoes the cheers of joy that it once held, while the audience watches in fear for it knows these young gentlemen are only walking to certain death.