Review of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Jason J — 29 Apr 2011

This film truly deserves the title anti-war movie! There are many movies who have been advertised like that but they are just movies about war or have a wartime background. Or try to be anti-war but aren't.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" never gives one the feeling that the front is somewhere you want to be or that it is a place of great heroics. I have seen a couple of the famous war or anti-war movies, but with the exception of "Paths of Glory" not one of them ever comes close to this.

We see here how young men get coaxed into volunteering to become soldiers by their teacher in school and we live with them in the trenches and one by one we die with them. There's no glory in their fighting, it basically shows a bunch of men trying to survive each day and praying they'll come through unscathed.

It is a very powerful look at the trenches and the opposite side. Overall this movie is perfectly played and photographed too!