“In the West, unchanged” is the screening of Erich Maria Remarque’s fresh produced by Germany for the Netflix platform, and I admit that, in addition to all the nuances I am about to compose about, it is an excellent war film.
I compose this without a shadow of exaggeration, the more amazed that it is not a cinema image, but a popular streaming platform, which is alternatively celebrated for gathering the needs of a westernised consumer. Here is besides the strength of this production, due to the fact that this movie bears as much as possible the marks of modern production, of which in this case I do not make a charge. The painting fell on my head by surprise virtually cramming into the chair! I just didn't anticipate this from Netflix...
Message to the consumer
In movie art, the key to success is imagination and consistency in its implementation. The origin material is an excellent war fresh telling the destiny of a young German Paula BaumerWhich, as a consequence of cheating on parents, hits the French front. From the first minutes of the screening, you can see that the imagination was the adaptation of the book – inaccurate, very simplistic (I think completely consciously), but surely giving the climate of the communicative – not besides complex, due to the fact that the not-expanded feature threads here are a driving motor, and the main character and her tragic peripeties associated with the drama of the war, which she experiences with all, frightening power from the first minute in the trench.
This consistency can be seen at all level. manager Edward Berger He made a successful effort to give back what the book “In the West Without Change” is – 1 large anti-war manifesto. The squad who worked on the movie became active in the realization of this vision, how to feel. They managed to translate the spirit of the fresh into a contemporary, but excellent workshop movie form.
To war!
How planet War I started according to historians, we all know, but the movie is not about it. There's not even quite a few that large behind-the-scenes policy. There is simply a war against all its cruelty and a perfectly demonstrated mechanics of social engineering that pushes people into a heated oven. The ubiquitous pathos in a media message that so forms the minds of young Germans that they simply want to go to the front. It's a shame not to fight! Our main character, however, did not get approval to enlist, so he fakes his parents' signatures and he and his colleagues go on this “adventure”. How much importance, how much ethos – the brotherhood of young people, waiting for uniforms (between scenes superb inserts about where fresh uniforms come from), jokes, making stories about victory.
The apogee of the pathos follows in a speech by the commander to fresh recruits who are about to decision to the French front – a imagination of the large Victoria and medals that young soldiers will bring from the war, covered in glory. But this soldier's ethos ends...
Simple History
Since the first moments in the trenches, pathos, importance, joy and imagination of triumph disappear. There are trenches, dirt, noise, mud, screaming wounded, death and fear. At this stage, the art of the full team's movie workshop begins to emerge. The full game is simplified, to a minimum, and the viewer is to be full impressed with the character of the young Baumer. This is done absolutely brilliantly!
Screenwriters Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell they put on a simple but with a immense emotional load, reaching for classical solutions, specified as contrasting the “foil” situations full of suffering and fear with shots from the command staff, where generals in luxury carriages, at the most set tables, discussed the “strategy of destruction”. any people object to the movie besides simplistic, but I ask: what is war from the position of our hero, a simple soldier? A constant conflict for endurance combined with the necessity to kill as many “there” as possible – pure and brutal violence! So, yes, it must be a simple communicative so the viewer can feel it all with the hero. The script, however, is not all.
Responsible for photos James Friend and supporting installation Sven Budelmann They besides chose classical solutions. alternatively of looking for different "patents", specified as the creators of "1917", who made almost the full movie by mastershot means one, continuous shot, without assembly (a conflict movie challenge that made it tiring) was put here on an amazing combination of realism and art. This can be seen in almost all frame and all movement of the camera. The lens always follows in specified a way that we feel tension, fear (additional sound), we see terrible scenes – blood, bodies of the fallen, explosions, etc. At the same time, erstwhile we get unchangeable frames, they are always tasteful and perfectly composed, which gives a unique effect especially to nightlife – specified an operator school Janusz Kamiński. Of course, there was besides a phenomenal phase plan and fantastically refined and historically compatible costumes by Lisa Christl.
The music completes the whole; and here, the classical solutions were exceptionally not put on. In war pictures, costumes, mostly historical reaching for modern climates is always risky and almost always just seems bad, slicing and grotesque (at least for me). But here I was completely swept off the board. Volker Bertelmann has virtually created his “musical adaptation of this story”. This is 1 of those films where music is an integral part, actually like actors and phase design, absolutely complementing the whole. Thanks to these sounds, the key scenes carry specified a immense emotional charge that virtually grabs the viewer by the throat! This soundtrack is characterized by incredible imagination and abundance of forms, to which the composer reached. From extensive, plastic orchestrations characteristic of this kind of production to minimalist solutions based on choir and strings, and sometimes even modern music with electronic inserts! It is simply a soundtrack that is perfectly listened to, besides as music, without film.
Contrast Game
Both the fresh and the movie perfectly reflect the contrasts of planet War I. After all, this was a breakthrough in terms of fresh military technologies, but at the same time the tactics of the "foil war" were inactive valid. This is where all the horror of this war is cursed. Soldiers traditionally moving for whistles from dirty trenches collided with fresh deadly tools specified as ‘continuous fire’, tanks, flamethrowers or combat gas become a ‘meat cartridge’ which should be exchanged quickly.
The universal death is something common, mass and daily, but it besides becomes poignant in moments of confrontation “one by one”, which is an extraordinary pronunciation of the scene in the bomb pit (I will not describe it so as not to deprive the reader of the impression).
This is where the deficiency of pathos plays and the simplification of past towards the book. War from the position of an average soldier is not a strategy, geopolitical goals, and a reported communicative of heroism. War is death, pain, wounds, the stench of burned and rotting bodies, blood (literally sinking into the ground that is permanently turning red), sickness, lingering, killing, “doing under yourself”, feeling helpless, longing and fear! It's fear-speaking...
Memento for 2022
This film, which has now been released in specified a simplified form, on a popular platform, which is widely available, should become a mandatory position for all Poles who have become excited about the conflict in Ukraine.
Each of them should feel the character of Paul Baumer, so well played by a young actor Felix Kammerer. It's not difficult, due to the fact that the communicative is truly shallow to a minimum, which increases the focus on the main character. The drama of a young soldier is that he entered this device of his own free will! Being manipulated by war propaganda, he went even to deception to be on the front! Additionally, the movie is intertwined with shots from the command staff, where cold calculations and conversations are held. individual may say that it's populism and the toll of the victim made by the soldiers from the target, taking distant their heroism... Really?
I urge this adaptation to everyone. This is simply a position that anyone can realize and read as a large anti-war manifesto. Besides, it's besides a part of finely made cinema. If anyone would like to get this communicative with all its complexities and a solid geohistorical feature, they should, of course, scope for Remarque's fresh or its erstwhile screening, but I urge this movie as a memento for 2022. Let's not go to war!
Bartosz Iwicki
"In the West unchanged" (Im Westen nichts Neues), dir. Edward Berger, Germany – United States – United Kingdom, Netflix 2022, 148 min.
Think Poland, No. 49-50 (4-11.12.2022)
