All Quiet on the Western Front Filmed by German Critics — World of Reel

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Edward Bergers’ All Quiet on the Western Front garnered perhaps nine Oscar nominations, not to mention 14 BAFTA nominations, making it the most advertised German film of all time with those two awards bodies. But in its home country, Shepherds’ WWI epic failed to impress critics at all.

The Guardians Philip Oltermann reports that the Oscar-nominated film suffered a critical thrashing in Germany. Critics complain of its excitement for an Oscar performance and military historians for its black-and-white historical inaccuracies.

Sddeutsches critic Hubert Wetzel wrote, you have to wonder if director Berger even read the novel Notes. The novel itself is said to be very important in Germany, Hitler had banned it before it eventually became a fixed text in many schools across modern Germany.

Oltermann goes on to find many other top German critics who have called the film Oscar bait and a failed literary adaptation. Which forces me to ask the question: will the Germans even root for this movie to win on Oscar night? We have a lot of German readers, maybe they can let us know their thoughts on the Shepherds remake.

All Quiet on the Western Front was very well received in the United States, it has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 76 on Metacritic.

In September, I saw the film at TIFF and posted this reaction to the film:

Though too long, Edward Bergers’ very loose remake and adaptation of All Quiet in the Western Front features some of the most heartbreaking war sequences of the 21st century.

Almost 3/4 of this film is absolutely visceral. You smell the dirt, the stench, the pain. There are passages that bring the viewer into the heart of the peace negotiations between Germany and France. These stretches did not bother me at all, they allow us to better understand the masters of war playing their dangerous game of chess.

No, All Quiet on the Western Front does not reinvent the war film. There is shine. There is familiarity. But that doesn’t really detract from the overall impact of the set. The action is meticulously staged, the editing beautifully fluid. It should be seen on the biggest screen possible, and the fact that it’ll be streaming on Netflix in about a week or so means most viewers won’t fully experience the Shepherds movie.

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