TIFF 2022: All Quiet On the Western Front Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On the Western Front is the quintessential WWI novel and is one of the most important texts ever published by a German author. Remarque was a veteran of WWI and the novel captures his soul-crushing experience entering the war as an impressionable young soldier, and the horrors that him and his collogues had to endure. It’s an in-depth exploration of the extreme mental and physical toll the war took on all parties involved, and the difficult, often never-ending struggle that soldiers had deal with while attempting to reacclimate into everyday civilian life. The 1930 American adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front is an undeniable classic of the war genre and one of the first films to win the coveted Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards. That being said, it is clearly an Americanized reconstruction of the story and therefore not completely faithful to the novel.

All Quiet on the Western Front is the first German adaptation of the novel, and therefore the nation provided a wealth of resources, resulting in the most expensive film production in the history of Germany. All Quiet on the Western Front doesn’t necessarily offer anything new from a narrative standpoint that audiences haven’t seen in other films exploring the horrors of war. Its relatively standard fare for the genre, that will generate many comparisons to recent large-scale war films such as 1917 and Dunkirk. The film differentiates itself on the basis that it is exploring the war through the German perspective, but it doesn’t delve deep enough into the role Germany played in the war and the implications that many soldiers faced due to the nation being the central instigators of the conflict.

That being said, All Quiet on the Western Front is still a remarkable achievement in filmmaking. This is Edward Berger’s introduction to the world stage, and it’s clear he is a name that will be discussed for many years to come. He is extremely confident behind the camera and creates an immersive portrait of WWI that doesn’t hold back, catapulting audiences into the trenches and vividly capturing the horrors that soldiers had to endure. The film is a technical feat that boasts perhaps the most impressive cinematography most will see all year. It basks in the horrific imagery of war, utilizing an effective monochromatic color palette. Meanwhile, the sound design and editing also stand out in ensuring the film is immersive.

Where All Quiet on the Western Front lacks in storytelling, it makes up for tenfold in the craft and technical proficiency on display. In the end, it’s a extremely well crafted war film that ranks among the most technically impressive and brutally authentic the genre has seen in recent years.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Tristan French