All Quiet On The Western Front Film Analysis

__ All Quiet on the western front and how it relates to "Insensibility" by Wilfred Owen

Submitted by: Marilyn Thipthorpe

I think this movie is a classic masterpiece or example of Anti-war. It shows how war takes everything away from you especially your humanity. This movie was banned for about 4-5 years after its release because of its in-depth effect on people due to the war. In this movie we get a young German group (who haven’t even passed out of College yet) who have been recruited in the name of idealism. With much passion and fire their school master, made their blood boil with the desire to go out and fight. Victory, status, medals, doing something for your country ran through the blood in their veins, this is why they decided to enlist.
After getting an initial basic training the boy came face to face with reality on their first day on the battle ground. They would live in
trenches, where there was no food to be found within a 20 mile radius. Hunger, thirst, lack of health care or sanitation, the constant fear of bullets, bombs and air strikes- some tore out their hair in frustration and some just sat and cried. Friends saw their friends dying before their very eyes. There was nothing to do but carry on with the war. They had no choice.
They were 2nd class soldiers when they enlisted, a number of 150 soldiers.
This came down to 80 during the middle years of the war and in the end all was left is less than 10 soldiers. But the most horrifying and hurtful thing were the face to face battles. The person coming in front of you is your enemy, it’s a kill or be killed situation, there no place to think that your both humans. For example when Paul Brauner (0) comes face to face with a situation like this, he had to kill a French soldier that too with his knife, after stabbing the soldier and while the soldier was fighting for his life Paul said “I’m sorry”. Upon checking the soldiers pockets Paul found a dairy containing the photos of the soldiers wife and child, Paul kept telling the soldier that he would visit the woman and child with whatever the soldier wanted if he was forgiven. Paul full of remorse kept saying he was sorry till the soldier took his final breath. Meaning, even if there is a place for humanity during war it only surfaces after the taking of a life. This was the biggest truth during that
time.
They lost all their purity, sympathy and feelings as humans, in other words they were turned into machines. Meaning the person controlling the machine gun was a machine gun himself. We get this same exact setting and plot in Wilfred Owens poem “insensibility”. Here the poet writes beautifully about the disastrous effect of war on the soldiers.
All these conditions of the soldiers meant little or nothing to the leaders. A martyr, a cripple, a war hero all this was of little consequence to the leaders. All they expected was a person to continue his task, if they felt remorse over death it was only because those soldiers could have fought a few more days, moths etc.
We understand now, the two world wars were not for independence as told but just for power. War for independence is one thing either you achieve it or not; but war for power is nothing but a loss, a loss for ages to come. Due to this we still as humans and nations are facing what took place years ago during the world wars.
I would like to end my analysis with the declaration made by Paul Brauner “I can't tell you anything you don't know. We live in the trenches out there. We fight. We try not to be killed; sometimes we are. That's all.”