Quatre de l'infanterie

In this German WW1 movie from director G. W. Pabst, the film follows a small group of German infantrymen during the waning days of the war. The "Student" (Hans-Joachim Moebis), a young eager soldier, volunteers for dangerous messenger duty in order to grab time with a nearby village girl (Jackie Monnier). Karl (Gustav Diessl) pines for his wife back home, but a trip back during leave doesn't bring the desired results. And all around them rains death and destruction. Also featuring Claus Clausen.

This makes for an interesting companion piece to this same year's All Quiet on the Western Front. This movie is a bit rawer, with some minor fondling and cursing that wouldn't have made it into a US film, even during the pre-code era. The performances are all good, and I especially liked the turn by Clausen as an intense lieutenant in over his head. There's a section in a beerhall with a USO-type show featuring musicians, a raunchy singer, and a clown, that goes on a bit too long. The last 15 minutes or so are some of the most devastating war scenes in film. Highly recommended. .

This is the story of life in the trenches during World War 1 from the perspective of 4 German soldiers, one of them a Lieutenant. The fact that they are on the 'other' side makes no difference to the feel of the story or the film's message. War is bad.

There is no particular story to focus on. The film is a sequence of events during wartime and it just carries on after the film has ended, just like it was already in existence once the film had started. It does have dramatic segments, eg, the home visit granted to Gustav Diessl (Karl), the exploits involving Hans-Joachim Mobis (the student) and various battlefield situations, confrontations and realizations.

The film occasionally has slow segments but it is interesting from a social history perspective. What was the point of it all?

Director G.W. Pabst uses sound well in this, his first sound film. There's the noise of continual bombardment, which adds to the visual realism. Moreover, sound serves continuity. Whistling continues from one scene to another in one transition; in another, the music of a band playing at a canteen turns into the drumbeat for marching soldiers. Also endearing of this antiwar statement is that it is not exciting, unlike other supposedly dovish pictures that end up romanticizing battle. There's the screaming Frenchman between trenches. An artillery firing line is too short, hitting patriot trenches. A return home on leave has a soldier discovering that his wife trades sex to get by.

The framing, editing and visual quality are adept, as one would expect from Pabst, if not from an early sound film. I especially liked the framing and fluidity of the staircase goodbye. There's a surveying moving camera, as there is in "All Quiet on the Western Front". The long battle sequence at the end is the climax of the salient film-making. There is a very long take from an unmoving position, as if the camera were a hidden soldier observing; it is unexciting, yet my attention was not discouraged.

Although this covers the same broad subject matter as "All Quiet", there is a different and welcome perspective and the film making is very definitely more European in style, harder edged and more matter of fact, which I have to say I prefer. For the English speaking audience it does suffer in that it has not been cared for and restored in the same way as "All Quiet". The version I saw had some rather jarring (at least to my English ears) subtitles, which showed that the UK and the USA are indeed two countries divided by a common language. I'm not sure what German words translate as "What in tarnation". Having said that the film was powerful, innovative and quite startling in its use of sound, which we should bear in mind had only been in use for 3 years or so. If someone knows where there is a restored version for the English speaking audience (preferably on DVD) I will be first in the queue

The very interesting director, GW Pabst directs a war movie in his first movie with sound, and he uses it to amazing effect. There hardly is a story, just the usual Some Nice Kids Go To War And Find Out That, Gee! War Is Hell! Hokum. The movie is nothing but a sensory experience. The war scenes in this movie are very frighteningly realistic. TO be honest, I have NO idea how he achieved some of the explosion shots. They looked like they were exploding very close to the actors in some scenes. I guess they didn't have actor's unions in those days. LOL..

Film can overextend its welcome, but it depends on what you're looking for, I guess.