"On the Western Front unchanged" from Netflix. The occupiers steal geese and infamously die in muddy
But the details differ: the film brings the author's idea rigidly and posterly, although its anti -war goal is achieved. The film, which was released on the Netflix platform on October 28, began to be discussed on the network immediately. It is clear-there is a Russian-Ukrainian war, and here-the adaptation of the world's most famous anti-war novel. The film is quite highly appreciated by Western criticism (on Rotten Tomatoes a 94% rating with an average score of 8.
4 out of 10), but there is a complaint about simplification of characters. In my opinion, 52-year-old director Edward Berger did it consciously to emphasize the absurdity of war as such. At the beginning of the movie, we see a puppy's mother sucking a natural phenomenon that says the director, and the murder of people, yesterday's children, iron is an unnatural phenomenon . . . We see how massive propaganda for high school students. And the point campaigning of their school teacher.
The consequence of this is the joyful excitement of students in anticipation of the chance to become "real heroes". Four classmates go to the front of the First World War. At the conscript points, 18-year-old boys hear the same thing: "You are the iron youth of Germany, Kaiser needs soldiers, not children!" The central character of the tape-yesterday's volunteer schoolgirl Paul Boymer (Felix Cammer) is shown to the impossibility of naive.
"I want to dress the shape as soon as possible," he says at the call. And then she is surprised to find that on it a tag - with a foreign name. The officer is unbridled with the tag with the name of the previous owner of the previous owner and, radiantly smiling, returns her to the young yogurt: "Now she is completely yours. " Paul and his comrades came to the Western Front in 1917, where Germany invaded France. The first artillery shelling deprives the company of romantic ideas about the war.
But the bravada also sounds: "Let's shoot the first Frenchman. " They shoot random from the trench, but the ball in response almost demolishes the skull of the second Paul, kissing in the helmet. "He shot and at once ten steps," Corporal shouts at them. The games are over. Then you are waiting for the wild naturalistic bayonet attacks, murder with a knife and a spatula. Explosions tear off the legs, arms, heads. The remnants of people hang on the trenches of the horn, entangled with barbed wire.
The first sentimental scene, when Paul fasten on all the buttons of his killed friend. But commanders do not lose optimism: "Cheer, on horseradish! In battle!" German soldiers slaughtered the French in the dugout and, hungry, rushed to eat the remnants of food on the table. Their marauder meal was interrupted by the roar-armored monster-dunes appeared. Late dresses - the mouth of corpses.
Around the fire from flamethrowers and airplane bombers - the death machine ruthlessly devours people sent for slaughter. An incredibly beautiful garden in the snow that seems to promise a peaceful life. But the war machine does not reduce the momentum. The hungry German invaders who steal geese from French farmers are one of the most cunicated episodes in the picture. "You can die for food," they say. But they will not laugh soon.
There are several analogies in the ribbon with the Russian-Ukrainian war. The military leadership of the Western Front in the number of two people is dinner at an inappropriately long table, such as Putin received guests and associates. The second is when the German soldier receives a letter from his wife: "Have you started raising money?" Similar letters from the wives of the Russian invaders have already become a common place in the satirical sketches of "Quarter 95".
Paul became an experienced frontline. In a hand -to -hand combat, he rolled with a knife to the French breast. The enemy soldier is wheezing, blood in the overcoats oozes blood. Paul's hysterical screams: "Do not shout!" He brutally falls asleep with the French ground. And here they lie - the victim and the killer. The Frenchman looks at the German with blue eyes. And suddenly he punches: this is a person! The German becomes a pity of the French soldier.
He rushes with the knife again to cut the overcoat - to help the French breath. Paul runs behind the water to rinse the mouth from the ground that he himself poured. "Excuse me, friend!" - he shouts to the one who dies. One half of the main character's face in dirt, the other is pure: half - beast, half - man. The Blue eyes of the French are frozen, looking into the sky. Paul receives his documents: Duval Gerard, printer. The photo is wife and daughter. "I am looking for your wife," the German cries.
The transformation of the hero seemed to happen. However, then the Paul, which is crazy, becomes a beast-killer again-and in a much more absurd situation. And now his whole head is dark from dirt. Berger is very symbolic: the hero did not realize anything.
The protagonist in the film is not the main character, but a real historical person is a politician and writer Matthias Ertzberger (Daniel Bryul), a commission from the truce between the Entente and Germany, who was the first to sign under the document that stopped the First World War. He died in this war son, and Matthias does his best to stop dying every hour.