Westfront 1918: Vier von der Infanterie

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.

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 a movie that actually doesn't really have a main plot-line in terms of following one main character and have a clear beginning, middle part and end. Just like war there is no logic in it and things just happen within this movie as the movie moves along. It puts you right in the middle of things and shows you the madness of war.

It handles all different kinds of aspects from the war. It doesn't only show the situation from the viewpoint of the young soldiers but it also focuses on the family and girls back home. It doesn't do this by featuring it too prominently but picks out an handful of minor characters and just a couple of sequences to get the message across. This works out really well and it doesn't feel melodramatic or anything like that. Modern movies can really learn something from this.

But of course foremost the movie gets set in the trenches, somewhere in France. The movie is filled with some WW I battle sequences, which are all surprising good and authentic looking. Guess lots of materials and places from WW I were still around during the production of this movie so they did not have an hard time recreating the look and feeling of the battles fought out in the trenches.

It was the first sound movie from Georg Wilhelm Pabst and this shows. Nothing too major, it are just some little things showing you that 'talkies' hadn't been around yet for very long and Georg Wilhelm Pabst wasn't also too experienced with it yet. He pretty much shot this movie in the same way as he would had filmed a silent movie.

The movie is of course also original with the fact that it tells the story from the German point of view. While watching this movie you don't actually ever give you the feeling you're watching the movie from the 'evil' and bad point of view. All parties are more or less victims within a war and things are not as black & white as they always seem.

Simply a real good and effective WW I production, especially when considering that it got shot way back in 1930.

8/10

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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?

Very much worth viewing. I caught it on Turner Classic Movies recently, and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of this film.

This film transcends the limitations of the sensibilities of the time and the special effects available to movie makers. It makes no sweeping statements or judgments about war and aggression. It simply gives you a glimpse of what it was like to live and die in the trenches of The Great War.

Although not as intense as "All Quiet on the Western Front" (whose subject matter it shares), it has its moments of artistry. It is also more narrowly focused than "All Quiet..", but its story is compelling and riveting. Should be in anybody's serious list of worthy war movies.