Greatest Pacifist Film

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2002)

All Quiet on the Western Front is the finest film ever made about war. Germany during World War 2 suppressed it, so powerful a statement it is against the inhumanity of war it is no wonder our leaders fear it.
The film focuses on the process by which young men are turned into killers for the state. We see naive boys deceived by a nationalistic sermon on the virtues of self sacrifice and the glory of combat delivered by a loathsome schoolteacher. They are thoroughly indoctrinated, and the lot of them signs up to fight in the Great War. Only after basic training begins do they begin to realize the magnitude of what they have set themselves up for.
There are some of the most stunning and grisly combat scenes ever filmed. One remembers a soldier hit by a bomb near a barb wire fence, when the smoke clears we see nothing left of him but his hands desperately clutching the barb wire. Another scene involves a soldier forced to spend the night in a crater with the corpse of a man that he has just killed. In a fever of madness, he engages the body in an imaginary dialogue, first attempting to justify his action then finally begging the inert object for forgiveness. The scene is lurid, nearly surrealistic and terrifying.
The main character of the film is death, and the soldiers slowly getting used to his presence until they are hollowed out and numb. They come to realize not only the brutality of but also, more importantly, the pointlessness of war. In one discussion they wonder what they are doing trying to kill the English and the French, considering that none of them have ever known an Englishman or Frenchman.
Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket was modeled on this film in both structure and theme, but despite that film's undeniable value, this one remains superior. At the time of my writing this review George Dumbya Bush is planning to push America into yet another pointless war with Iraq, I wish I could get every American to watch this film, it might just turn popular sentiment against the war and save tens of thousands of lives.