All Quiet On The Western Front

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Those students studying war poetry may be interested in ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. This is a classic of the cinema, now in the public domain. The film is adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque and it follows a group of German schoolboys who are talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about the enemy and the rights and wrongs of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

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