All Quiet on the Western Front

When the Academy Award nominations were announced last month, All Quiet on the Western Front was the only Best Picture nominee that I hadn't seen (click on the titles for my commentaries on Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, TÁR, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking).  Even though it is streaming on Netflix I really wanted to see it on the big screen so I waited, hoping that it would return to theaters.  I was able to find a screening yesterday afternoon and I was completely overwhelmed by this devastating portrayal of the futility of war.  After a particularly deadly battle three years into World War I, the uniforms are removed from the dead, transported, laundered, repaired, and given to the new recruits.  Paul Baumer (Felix Kammerer) and three of his school fellows, Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer), Franz Muller (Moritz Klaus), and Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grunewald), enthusiastically enlist in the Imperial German Army hoping for adventure and the opportunity for glory.  They unknowingly receive these repurposed uniforms and are transported to the front, where they are soon confronted by the brutal realities of trench warfare.  As Paul watches his friends and comrades, Tjaden Stackfleet (Edin Hasanovic) and "Kat" Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), die in battle one by one, a German politician named Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Bruhl) attempts to negotiate a ceasefire with the Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalambert) to prevent more loss of life.  Foch refuses and gives Germany 72 hours to agree to Allied terms during which Paul's unit is decimated in battle.  The armistice is eventually signed with a ceasefire scheduled to take place at 11:00 on November 11 but General Friedrichs (Devid Striesow) does not want the war to end without a victory so he orders an attack at 10:45 with deadly consequences.  The battle sequences are some of the most realistic ones I've seen and they are visceral and unrelenting.  The jarring and foreboding score only adds to the horror and chaos of battle.  The juxtaposition of the elegant drawing rooms and beautifully appointed train compartments where the ceasefire is negotiated with the desolate landscape of battle littered with corpses is also very effective.  Kammerer gives a brilliant and heartbreaking performance, especially in a scene where he finds his friend's body after his first battle and a scene where he begs the soldier he has just killed for forgiveness.  This is a movie I will not soon forget and I highly recommend it even though it is hard to watch.

Note:  Everything Everywhere All At Once seems to be the front-runner to win but, honestly, with the exception of The Fabelmans (which I did not care for) I would be happy with a win for any of the nominees.  Do you have a favorite?