All Quiet on the Western Front

 More beauty and squalor, and more subtitles

4 friends from a German military school- join up and serve in a regiment in the last few days of the First World War. While Generals and Politicians try to end the war

The War here is Franco German affair. We don't see any British or Americans, or Russians.

Everything looks beautiful. The red caps of the military academy student The forests of France in the rear of the trenches.  The snow of midwinter. The dress uniforms of the French and Germans

When it is not beautiful, it is foul- the corpses. Wet, and damp. We see someone go mad after bombardment. One of the leads has to collect the dog tags of the dead. 

It is like Master and Commander a film almost without women. Wives and Mothers are mentioned. One of the lads has a liaison with a French woman. A poster is used as a pin up

There is an interesting use of food- We see the Politicians eating well- eggs and toast before their negotiation with the French in the railway carriage. A goose is stolen as a treat.  The final attack on the French is paused to steal bread and meat. 

History remains a burden. We - the viewer knows what is coming. The whisper of the Bolsheviks, the plans for a goose and candles at Christmas. 

A fine film

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Song for today ``There’s gotta be more…’’

I am borrowing this content for a moment. Yes I am aware I have a child’s musical taste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUOcQnWbk_U&feature=related I used to catch this song,on one of the music channels, a few years ago.  I liked it. Its a nice enough song.  Stacey O, is a sweet young lady. Who tired of the music business and became a volunteer in Africa. I have been listening to it all day today. I downloaded if from Amazon. It catches a moment in adolescence when, you start working, and its mopping floors, or loading books onto barrows. You go to college and its waiting around all day for three hours of lectures, eating instant noodles, and maybe watching Star trek, or the Simpsons  and going to bed. So you go to the club on the weekend. You go to the underwear party. You get drunk, but that’s it isn’t it
Read more

Malchera in High school

Image
Will from the in-betweeners, with bad skin, look at the area arround my left eye. I have just had a bout of conjuctiveitis. That and my half smile, to conceal my cracked incisor and dirty teeth... I don't know why I actually possess this picture. School Photographs, now there is racket. They take you out of class, and take your picture, and charge you for the picture. Anyway, my mother never paid for the school photographer. She had 4 children in the same school,  and paying for 4 photographs, would not have been cheap. I do remember the day though. Before me, the busty Kelly Panei, had gone first. The photographer had made a crack about beauty and the beast, so I knocked over his stand on the way out... But for years after, this was my mental image of myself...
Read more