Now that's a strange movie?
Jan. 1st, 2008 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarkerHappened to watch this today - it was on the Japanese TV, and we were curious about it. "All Quiet On The Western Front." Old Black and White (1930?)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/ has some more about it.
Basically, it shows a group of German young people going through boot camp and into WWI - trench fighting, artillery, and all the ugliness. The actors speak English, which threw me for a while - I thought they were supposed to be English, but they are German.
I'd say this is an anti-war movie. Loved the scene where the soldiers at the front are talking about why they are fighting, and they decide that the next time the countries want to have a war, they should take a big field, drop all the diplomats and generals and other people in it in their underwear, and let them fight it out.
Some other eye-catchers were the French (?) soldier who ends up in a bomb hole with Paul (the hero), who knifes him, then ends up trying to keep him alive - the monologue by Paul about both of us being people is worth listening to. Or the cute off-camera dialog with a french woman who sleeps with him (apparently) for food - where he says he will never be back, and probably wouldn't recognize her if he did meet her again, but he'll remember her forever - and she answers in French, apparently not understanding a word he said. The horrors of the field hospital are also quite recognizable.
Not a romantic view of war, but then, artillery shelling, trench fighting, and aerial bombardment aren't exactly romantic.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/ has some more about it.
Basically, it shows a group of German young people going through boot camp and into WWI - trench fighting, artillery, and all the ugliness. The actors speak English, which threw me for a while - I thought they were supposed to be English, but they are German.
I'd say this is an anti-war movie. Loved the scene where the soldiers at the front are talking about why they are fighting, and they decide that the next time the countries want to have a war, they should take a big field, drop all the diplomats and generals and other people in it in their underwear, and let them fight it out.
Some other eye-catchers were the French (?) soldier who ends up in a bomb hole with Paul (the hero), who knifes him, then ends up trying to keep him alive - the monologue by Paul about both of us being people is worth listening to. Or the cute off-camera dialog with a french woman who sleeps with him (apparently) for food - where he says he will never be back, and probably wouldn't recognize her if he did meet her again, but he'll remember her forever - and she answers in French, apparently not understanding a word he said. The horrors of the field hospital are also quite recognizable.
Not a romantic view of war, but then, artillery shelling, trench fighting, and aerial bombardment aren't exactly romantic.
