I have amended slightly my review of All Quiet on the Western Front which I posted yesterday. I did this because I revealed too much about the film without giving a warning. I apologize unreservedly for this grievous mistake.

The film “All Quiet on the Western Front,” is based on a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque in 1929 about a decade after The Great War [World War I].  the title of the novel in German was Im Westen nichts Neues, and should properly be translated as Nothing New in the West. I wish they used the proper translation.  The film shows the war from the German perspective. It is interesting to see that perspective, though it is not that different from the Allied side. It is important for us to understand that.

That war famously was fought for absolutely no good reason. Not that wars usually have a reason that makes sense of the carnage. Yet that  was a war in which 17 million people died. After years of fighting and killing each other the front lines of east and west had hardly moved significantly.  What was the point of the awful slaughter? This film explores that question.

The film is set in the closing days of the war in 1917 following the life of a young German soldier Paul Bäumer who had enlisted after a patriotic address from a school master who told them now lucky they had been born when they were because now they had the glorious opportunity of going to war for the Fatherland. The boys are giddy with excitement over the opportunity. They are told to keep their rifles as clean as the Holy virgin. Soon their faces will be completely covered by mud, but they must keep their rifles clean. The boys were not forced to go to war. They were eager to go to war!

This reminded me of the autobiography of Bertrand Russell who was also a young lad at the same time and when it was announced at Trafalgar Square that England was going to war against the so-called “Huns”, the same people who were cheering in Germany, the young men also cheered wildly. All over Europe young men were ecstatic at the prospect of war. All of them expected the war to be short. One of the lines they expressed  was “Home or Homo by Christmas.”  All of them were sadly mistaken.

The illusion is actually broken in the opening scene of this film of a fox quietly feeding her kits at the breast. This scene was quiet, as was the next. That was a scene of corpses lying on the ground. Silent forever. That scene of death shortly emerges in a horrendous battle. It appears that all soldiers are dead. And really all were dead even those who were alive. They were dead in spirit.

The German boys who enlisted are given uniforms that were previously worn by young Germans now dead. They are also quiet.

The grunts on the front line of course obey the order given to them to “charge.”  That is about the most absurd thing they could do. Run into gun fire because officers ordered them to do that all for no purpose whatsoever. That is what war is all about. Soon another soldier dumps a load of corpses. That is what life and death are all about on the Western front. They are indeed quiet. But nothing else is quiet.

The scenes of soldiers slogging through trenches filled with rivers of water are heart-breaking. The soldiers futilely try to bail out the water. It can’t be done. The young men who cheered the war, now soldiers, cower in the trenches shaking in terror.  The protagonist Paul finds his friend from school lying face down in the mud with his glasses beside his quiet corpse.

Allied soldiers in tanks drive over the trenches filled with German soldiers, crushing many to death. Another squad of Allied soldiers carrying flame throwers burn the German soldiers alive. Where are the heroes?

Trapped in a crater in no man’s land with a lone French soldier, Paul and the soldier  stare at each other for a while and then realize their duty is to fight.  Paul stabs the young  enemy solider with a knife and then watches him die slowl, before him. Blood gurgles out of his throat and Paul is unable to stem the flow. As he dies, Paul becomes remorseless and begs the solider for forgiveness from the dead and quiet corpse. He rummages through the corpse’s papers and finds a photograph of his wife and children. Paul promises to tell his widow what he did.

The soldiers rarely get edible food, but the top German brass dine in style with obsequious soldier servants who must watch the general toss the dregs of his wine glass to the floor as he asks for more.

Paul’s friend Franz spends the night with a French woman, Eloise, and brings back her scarf as a souvenir. He sniffs it, as do the other soldiers. Franz tells the others that Eloise had milk white skin, and breasts. Will wonders never cease? But the men spend their time fighting. They have no time for young women, even if they have white skin and breasts!

On the morning of November 10, the Supreme Allied Commander gives the Germans 72 hours to surrender, leaving no room for negotiations and reminding them that for each minute of delay more German soldiers will die. The senseless slaughter will continue until the Germans surrender. The Germans, unlike the Allies, [our side] do the only thing that makes sense. They surrender. Later, Paul returns to his unit and sees them celebrating the imminent end of the war. He finds his wounded friend Tjaden, who gives him Franz’s scarf. Paul and Kat bring him food but Tjaden, distraught at being crippled, fatally stabs himself in the throat using a fork Paul and Kat brought with the food. Then Tjaden is quiet too.

The Germans agree to surrender at 11 a.m. on November 11 but a German General wants to end the war with a victory, even though the armistice has been announced. So he orders an attack at 10:45 a.m. and with 15 minutes left in the war the young German soldiers attack and kill large numbers of Allied soldiers and in turn suffer huge losses at the hands of the young Allied soldiers. Senseless slaughter again. This epitomizes the war. Young men eagerly launch themselves into the carnage for no reason. They just do it because they are ordered to do it and soldiers obey orders.

A despondent, battle-hardened Paul kills many French soldiers in a brutal killing spree in the last 15 minutes of the war  before  11:00 AM when the fighting stops, and the western front falls silent. After 11 a.m. a newly arrived German recruit that Paul had saved in the combat finds  Franz’s scarf. This is what the boys ought to have been doing. Spending time with girls, rather than brutally fighting each other in bloody and muddy trenches. And all for no discernible reason.

This is a magnificent film. It shows us what war is all about: meaningless slaughter. And it shows us what life could be about—a young girl’s scarf that smells just fine. We don’t see her but we know she has “white skin and breasts”. Because we don’t see her, she is quiet too. After the carnage all is quiet on the western front.

I have a confession to make.  Even though I am a serious film reviewer who has huge respect for his audience, during my screening of this film I fell asleep! I don’t even know for how long. I was not watching it on my PVR where I could backtrack.

It happened when I was watching what seemed to me to an interminable martial arts scene. Even though the scene was partly a spoof of martial arts scenes I could not take it. It was mid-afternoon and I was stone sober and fell asleep. The reason is I am deeply bored by martial arts scenes. The first time I saw one I was enthralled like everyone else. After the 1,00^th such scene I could not resist sleep any longer.

That doesn’t mean the film did not have good points. It had lots of good points. It was a good and interesting film. I think it will probably win the Academy Awards. I am just sick of martial arts fighting scenes. Enough.

There is one very important aspect of this film and it is revealed in the title. That is that the film uses its art to show us Everything. Everywhere. All at Once. And that is not easy to do. As Pablo Picasso. He and his friend George Braque who discovered a revolutionary new method of expressing reality in art called Cubism. Together in the early 20^th century these two brilliant artist tried to show us different points of view of various subjects together all at once at the same time. Perhaps not everything as this film tries but a lot. That is why their images appeared fragmented and broken and helped establish not just a new form of painting, but actually, I would argue, helped to establish modern art of all kind including poetry, novels, sculpture, and music among others.

It seems to me this is what the makers of this film are doing and they have done a credible job in making cubism for cinema. How could I fall asleep through that? Stupidly!

As a result, the world explodes as if put through a blender as one reviewer cleverly noted. Perhaps, more in keeping with the film one might say, like clothes are jumbled in a clothes washer or dryer. You get to see all side at once. This film tries to do and therefore you must be prepared for a wild ride. Don’t fall asleep or walk out like a ninny. Then you might get to realize as Evelyn Wang said in the movie, “The universe is so much bigger than you realize.”  You can only look at images flashing through your mind at blinding speed. How else can you look at a multi-verse?  Can you view many stories at once? Or will you fall asleep on the job?

Gary Duong of NPR said, it is “a family hot pot of ridiculousness.”

The film really does try to show us everything, everywhere, all at once. As if the world was put into a blender and chopped up and then is spun around.  Or perhaps as demonstrated in the film, like clothes in a clothes washer or dryer at the laundromat. Like cubism. See all sides at once. How is that possible?  This film tries to show us how. To find out you have to be prepared for a wild ride. There really is nothing else like it.

Then, as if that is not enough, the film brings us to a simple yet immense conclusion: Be Kind. Even when you don’t know what is going on!

 You can do it.