Post by Hedvig on Jan 8, 2009 15:33:39 GMT -6
I've seen All Quiet on the Western Front once before, when they aired it on TV a while back. It was when I was new to classic films. I thought the acting was a bit melodramatic at times, but I also thought, that's to be expected. What I didn't expect was that it would move me as much as it did. I had thought it would just be a curio.
A couple of days ago I saw it again. I watched the DVD with my parents, and we screened the film on our projector. We had proper sound equipment too. In the beginning I thought, this is a really good early sound film, but it still seems a bit clumsy according to modern standards. I was anxious about it because I had hyped the movie up so much to my parents. Well, I wasn't disappointed. When the first battle began, our sound system went into full blast, and we were overwhelmed by the sounds of the war, along with the images presented to us. It was one of the most nightmarish battle sequences I had ever seen.
I haven't seen any movie about the First World War that has impressed upon me so much how brutal and pointless it was. You see the classmates get killed off one by one, and in the end you get the feeling that there's no hope, because as the main character Paul Baumer says, even if he survives the war he will never be the same and nobody who hasn't experienced it will be able to understand. Seeing All Quiet on the Western Front on the big screen was almost traumatic. My parents were completely silent after it was over, they hadn't been expecting that.
The overacting does mar the film a bit, but it doesn't ruin it for me, and in most instances I think the acting is fine. I also think one of the things that makes the film work so well is how close in time it is to the actual events. The film conveys the feeling that the trauma is still fresh.
A couple of days ago I saw it again. I watched the DVD with my parents, and we screened the film on our projector. We had proper sound equipment too. In the beginning I thought, this is a really good early sound film, but it still seems a bit clumsy according to modern standards. I was anxious about it because I had hyped the movie up so much to my parents. Well, I wasn't disappointed. When the first battle began, our sound system went into full blast, and we were overwhelmed by the sounds of the war, along with the images presented to us. It was one of the most nightmarish battle sequences I had ever seen.
I haven't seen any movie about the First World War that has impressed upon me so much how brutal and pointless it was. You see the classmates get killed off one by one, and in the end you get the feeling that there's no hope, because as the main character Paul Baumer says, even if he survives the war he will never be the same and nobody who hasn't experienced it will be able to understand. Seeing All Quiet on the Western Front on the big screen was almost traumatic. My parents were completely silent after it was over, they hadn't been expecting that.
The overacting does mar the film a bit, but it doesn't ruin it for me, and in most instances I think the acting is fine. I also think one of the things that makes the film work so well is how close in time it is to the actual events. The film conveys the feeling that the trauma is still fresh.