Not Quite ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’
Not a faithful adaptation? So who cares? Not me
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
So I finally watched All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) last night after reading my comrade's piece Natasha MH on Medium yesterday.
Right so here is my prediction: it will win the Best Film and Best Director (Edward Berger) Oscars for 2023. I have no doubt.
Yet the film was panned in Germany because it is not a faithful adaptation of an absolutely classic anti-war novel. Understandable given that the novel by Erich Maria Remarque is an essential part of the curriculum in Germany. The novel is both a historical record and a contemporary reminder of that shattering time and a foreshadowing of the even worse horrors that followed. It should be a set book in every country that has any aspiration to be civilized.
The film ‘adaptation’ is clear that the defeat and complete surrender of Germany in 1918 and this military and professional failure…
