Netflix's awards-grabbing film is set at the end of the First World War, taking a typical war-genre route of following four fresh-faced, enthusiastic and patriotic young recruits as they are quickly subjected to the full-on horror of the front line and a war that keeps on going. Amongst the display of very visceral injury and an outrageous body count (with the shockingly casual expendability of the soldiers made very clear), the camera flits between passive observation and single-take immersion to fantastic effect - full credit to DoP Paul Friend and his team - and the combination of painterly artistic stylings and gritty reality-view presentation is at times breathtaking. Production design is immaculate - this is an impeccably-realised period piece - and whilst the long run time conveys the relentlessness of the experience, there is a slight mid-section sag as the politicking comes more into play, but as the second half of the film moves to more personal traumas the film becomes more emotionally distressing to watch. The main reason for the film's success is an extraordinarily powerful central performance by Felix Kammerer as Paul, in his first major film role, that shows terrific range and depth. All Quiet On The Western Front is not easy to watch, but it is highly-accomplished and cinematically very satisfying indeed.
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