Westfront 1918 (Westfront 1918: Vier von der Infanterie)
Directed by G.W. Pabst
Written by Ladislaus Vajda from a novel by Ernst Johannsen
1930/Germany
Bavaria Film/Nero-Film AG
First viewing/FilmStruck
[box] “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.” ― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front[/box]
Pabst’s first talkie tackles the horrors of war.
We follow a group of young German infantry men in the trenches of France as they suffer through bad conditions and pure terror. R&R spent in a French village behind the lines provides some relief but mostly it’s long waits for all hell to break loose.
Pabst’s first talkie came out the same year as Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front and has a lot in common with it. The director is still feeling his way with the format and this suffers from some over-obvious symbolism and poorly-paced combat footage. Still a powerful anti-war film which includes a glimpse of what life was like on the home front — not great.
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I love Pabst SO MUCH! Diary of a Lost Girl, The Threepenny Opera and especially Pandora’s Box (my favorite foreign film!).
I saw Westfront 1918 – probably on TCM – five years ago maybe and I remember liking it, but I don’t really remember it that well. Maybe I should watch it again … but I’d much rather Pandora’s Box or Diary of a Lost Girl or The Threepenny Opera.
I love Pabst too. A great talkie is Comradeship. It’s about the cooperation of German and French miners during a mine cave-in that straddled national borders. Some amazing special effects work in that one as well as a good story.
This sounds very much like a poor version of All Quiet… but then, must versions pale in comparison.
Exactly. It’s heart was certainly in the right place though.