Customer Reviews

Westfront 1918 [VHS]

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4 star:		(1)
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This classic WW1 film portrays the Germans at war from the German perspective. It acts as an interesting counterpoint to its contemporary, All Quiet on the Western Front, which portrays the Germans from the point of view of Hollywood.

As many of the participants in the film were veterans of the real war, wearing the original uniforms and showing the original tactics, this film is fascinating from the point of view of a student of the period.

While this is a difficult title to track down, it is well worth the effort if you are interested in seeing a cinematic representation of World War 1 through the eyes of those who actually participated.

"Westfront 1918" will immediately remind most viewers of "All Quiet on the Western Front". They both tell the story of the German soldier in WWI, the movies both excel in showing the destruction and futility of warfare, and they both were even released in the same year. Everyone familiar with the films of the 1930's knows of "All Quiet on the Western Front" yet how many are aware of "Westfront 1918"? I certainly wasn't yet, surprizingly, I believe that "Westfront 1918" is the better picture. I don't mean to take anything away from "AQOTWF"; it is a cinematic classic. However, the graphics of war are far more impressive in "Westfront" and the impact of war on the homefront is equally superior. There is a scene fairly early in "Westfront" in which soldiers are trapped in their underground dugout during a bombardment. Their desperation as the ceiling begins to collapse above them is impressively staged. Likewise, there is an impressive scene where the main character (Karl) goes home on leave. There is a very poignant and instructive scene with Karl's young wife that tells of the privations and challenges of the homefront. Her pleas at their somber parting say a lot more that the scene with the misguided college professor in "AQOTWF". The camaraderie of the soldiers, their bravery in action, and the apparent pointlessness of the young men's sacrifice all create a powerful film.

If there is a fault to "Westfront 1918", it is the limited cast. Rather than a cast of thousands, "Westfront" gives us a cast of dozens. We're used to the massive numbers of soldiers in the WWI suicidal scenes of "over the top". Rather than seeing divisions attacking, we see squads stealthily sneaking across "No Man's Land". However, maybe the fault lies in me because the director Pabst did so much with so little. "Westfront 1918" is far less Cecil B DeMille and far more Orson Welles.

G. W. Pabst is one of the few cinematic geniuses... The range and diversity of his films are enormous, from studies in war to psycho-analytical case histories...

'Westfront' is a stark, impressive film, with a plot somewhat similar to Lewis Milestone's 'All Quiet on the Western Front'...

The film follows the existence of four ordinary soldiers fighting on the French front during the last months of the war... Between them, they experience love, infidelity, insanity, and, ultimately, death... They are the innocent and helpless victims of a grotesque stupidity, and the poignancy of their predicament is emphasized rather than diminished by Pabst's austere approach and the film's pervading atmosphere of pessimism...

Pabst's intention is to remove all hints of glory and romance from war... Again and again certain motifs reappear in the film: the trenches, the barren stretch of land in front of the German lines, torn and removed, decorated with barbed wire, and shrouded in smoke and fog... By the process of repetition of the same scene (dialog is kept to a minimum and there is effective use of natural sounds) Pabst conveys the muddy chaos and monotony, but, above all, the isolation and deadliness... In one impressive scene the fog slowly dissolves, and in direct proportion to its rate of dissolution, hope rises of breaking out of the claustrophobic fear that the men (and now the audience) feel, until the spiritual elation caused by that prospect is shattered as we see that they are confronted by row upon row of tanks, steel monsters bearing fire and destruction...

'Westfront' is, as the French film historians, Maurice Bardèche et Robert Brasillach have described it, a 'sombre and hopeless picture of war.'

This dvd transfer has no English subtitles. That fact is not stated in this ad.
The Beta and VHS transfers have subtitles. Too bad, this is a great film by a fine director.
History's Reviewer