Film Review — All Quiet on the Western Front
A fierce, harrowing new adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel.
First, a clarification and a confession: Those of you who are familiar with my writing will know I favour the cinema experience over streaming with evangelical zeal. When it comes to films released via Netflix, I typically wait for them to arrive at one of my local independent cinemas, which means I generally get to them a couple of months after their release on streaming. Here in the rural southwest, I’m too far from London to make the trip to see Netflix films during their minuscule first-run releases.
My views on such paltry cinema releases — a cynical measure designed to qualify films for awards on a technicality — are well-documented, so I won’t repeat them at length here. Suffice it to say, the straight-to-streaming trend continues to dismay me. I despise it with a burning passion, as cinema should be the place to see films first and foremost. I wish Netflix and their ilk would negotiate a proper compromise with cinema chains, so we get more situations like last year’s Glass Onion (which had a brief wide cinema run), rather than me twiddling my thumbs waiting for critically praised films like All Quiet on the Western Front to darken the doors of my local independents.
