Last night Netflix released its new version of All Quiet on The Western Front on its streaming service.
It is, as one would expect for a remade war film in 2022, more gruesome than the original. It is actually a kind of horror film at times, and filmed as one.
It is also brilliantly filmed, and conceived. The opening sequence follows a German soldier named Heinrich as he musters the courage to finally go over the top even as he sees his friends and comrades being slaughtered almost instantly upon doing so. We see him killed. His body collected. He uniform removed, sent back to the Homefront, where it is exsanguinated in a laundry, stitched by a seamstress and reassigned to our main protagonist, Paul. It is a gruesome comment on the nature of modern war, totally at odds with the rhetoric of the commanders who inspire Paul to join.
It is difficult to watch. So was the original, and so was the controversial source material. But of course, the mutual suicide pact of the Western powers in World War should be bleak. If you have the stomach, I highly recommend it.