All Quiet on the Western Front: Oscars 2023’s horror contender

Because there are so many film industry awards before the Academy Awards ceremony begins, Oscar winners can feel somewhat predictable. The nominations are where the big surprises happen. One of this year’s bigger surprises was the overall strength of Netflix’s All Quiet at the Western FrontIt received nine Academy nominations and won Best Picture. It’s won a variety of industry and technical awards, and appeared prominently on best-of-2022 awards from film critics circles. The BAFTAs, essentially British Oscars, saw it receive 14 nominations. It also won seven awards including Best Film Director and Best Film. It’s now considered one of a handful of long-shot possibilities at upsetting presumed frontrunner You can have everything at onceThe Best Picture Award in the United States. This is especially surprising, because it’s arguably the worst movie among the 10 nominees.

This may sound harsh, particularly for a film with so many technical merits, and a story that has had such a lasting impact on generations. The German-language film, a new adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic 1929 anti-war novel, cuts between hardline negotiations to end World War I and the grisly fates of a group of young German soldiers. It’s a timeless message about the horrors of war. It is so timeless that it inspired the 1930 Best Picture winner adaptation. Director Edward Berger makes this message seem regressive by using a lot of gore.

Photo: Reiner Bajo/Netflix

Filmmaker François Truffaut has been consistently cited (and even more frequently paraphrased) on the subject of anti-war films. Here’s what he told Gene Siskel in the Chicago Tribune 50 years ago, in 1973: “I find that violence is very ambiguous in movies. For example, some films claim to be antiwar, but I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.” The 2022 All Quiet at the Western Front is the latest movie to respond to this provocative and thoughtful notion with: “But what if we made it Really violent?”

That isn’t necessarily a problem on its own. Berger can’t be faulted for not agreeing with Truffaut that his visually grotesque, upsetting movie inherently glorifies battles. This is his take on All Quiet at the Western Front This feels more like a part of the conversation about depicting death in combat, without glorifying it. However, the most important thing the new version adds to the conversation is its extreme and pervasive violence.

Berger’s style is never evoked. You can tryIt glorifies war. German soldiers are shown as being utterly untrained and surrounded by nationalistic rhetoric. They also live in constant terror. Even the longer furloughs that soldiers get in the books are cut out by the film, which provides some relief. The audience scarcely sees an act of heroism throughout the film’s 140 minutes. A brief and insignificant glimpse of humanity among the destruction is all that the soldiers are able to hope for. They tend to cling on to dumb luck, which eventually ends. Like a lot war movies, they follow in the steps of Save Private Ryan, the movie imitates the visceral slaughter of that movie’s harrowing opening passages without meaningfully deepening its impact. Berger, however, aims to give the movie more impact by increasing the amount of gore.

Arguably, Spielberg’s movie isn’t definitively anti-war either. However, its uncertain quality makes it a compelling film. Save Private RyanEven more compelling twenty-five years later. The ways it places acts of utter horror alongside empathetic characterizations — and yes, sentimental patriotism — denies the audience an easy set of answers. It’s characteristic of the later-period Spielberg who went on to make the Best Picture nominee The FabelmansThis scene includes one where Sammy (the young Spielberg replacement) enthusiastically accepts the technical challenges that comes with making war movies. The eagerness Sammy and his cast and crew bring to the project feels like a tacit admission that there’s a perverse artistic satisfaction in depicting grueling violence.

Photo: Reiner Bajo/Netflix

On paper, 2022’s All QuietSeems less conflicted on the meaning of war. For better or worse, it doesn’t have a Tom Hanks figure urging the young soldiers to “earn” the sacrifices being made all around them. These soldiers, who are fighting unsuccessfully for their lives in World War I’s trenches, find themselves lost. A crawl reveals to the crowd that their death was in vain. They aren’t heroes, they’re victims of the authority figures engaging in high-stakes negotiations far away. Battlefield action All QuietIt feels as if you are opening the door to Private RyanInstead of mission-driven violence, bodies are crushed by tanks. One man tears his throat open in dismay. As he is bleeding out, a soldier covered with mud nearly kills his enemy.

Berger however, by emphasizing this unified condition of the young soldiers Berger reduces them to characters. He then kills each one of them. Broadly speaking, that’s not so different from what happens in the 1930 film. What’s missing is the character-driven starkness that the earlier version gets out of its relative restraint; it’s explicit in its characters’ disillusion with their leaders and their country. Louis Peitzman (writer and horror enthusiast) compares 2022 on Letterboxd All Quiet to a slasher picture, and it’s a perceptive comparison. This movie is not for the faint-hearted. As the film progresses, the death scenes become more brutal and complex, with some deaths that are beyond the normal battlefield casualties.

Further comparing the two is the existence of 1930 All Quiet at the Western FrontIt feels almost like a horror movie remake from the mid 2000s. It doesn’t have much nuance, perspective, or originality. It simply updates the story with more modern special effects. It’s a reboot of “war is hell,” with a gritty-war-movie palette just as standardized as the music-video grain in Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes slasher remakes, highlighting the rich muck tones and pale uniform blues. It lacks the heart and passion of an exploitation film, just like its remakes. It feels almost as if it is set decoration, as 2003’s. Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Photo: Reiner Bajo/Netflix

In this way, 2022 is possible. All QuietThis is both an anomaly and a regular at the Oscars. Although foreign-language films are more likely to be nominated for Best Picture in the Best Picture category since it was expanded in 2009 and they have the same odds against English-language films. All Quiet’s heavy violence makes it a particularly bold choice. Many awards films have shown bloodspray, but not in pure viscera. All Quiet probably boasts the greatest volume this side of a Guillermo del Toro nominee — or Mel Gibson’s similarly slaughter-obsessed 2016 war movie Hacksaw Ridge. This is a counterpoint for the stupid, contextless war games. Maverick: Top GunIt coyly avoids calling out an actual enemy to keep the fun from alienating worldwide audiences seeking a good time.

But in reality, All Quiet at the Western FrontIt feels less like an invitation to imagine what an antiwar epic will look like by 2023. Netflix seems to have put more money behind awards-season nominees last fall. White noise, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and Rian Johnson’s Glass OnionIt suggests that All Quiet’s success is largely based on organic appreciation for the movie among Oscar voters. But it’s a strange movie to inspire that kind of appreciation. It’s a feel-bad story that all but congratulates the audience for understanding its extremely simple “war is tragedy” messaging — and for enduring a soup of movie violence rebranded as serious business.