All Quiet on the Western Front
Review

The opening scene of All Quiet on the Western Front was intriguing and included a bit of foreshadowing of events to come. A teacher was teaching German nationalism in a school, telling the students they were the future of Germany. The teacher explained that they, the future soldiers, would make Germany superior to the rest of Europe. It was interesting that the teacher was talking about World War I in the class, and this beginning was symbolizing the sense of nationalism in European countries and the duty people thought they had to fight in the war. I thought it was very intriguing that all the students were so eager to go fight and die for their country. The movie illustrated the training of the soldiers, showing that at first they were not very good obedient soldiers, but as they were trained they became a more obedient and skilled troop of soldiers. I was amazed by how diligently the soldiers were trained.
It was very disturbing just how quickly people were killed in war because as soon as one troop got off their bus into duty, one of the soldiers was killed by an air raid. This was very enlightening to just how frequently fatalities occurred in World War I. I was impressed by how the trenches were set up with barbed wire strung around them, making it difficult to get in. It was astounding that they did it all by hand. The portrayal of how it was quiet for a while, and then all of the sudden there would be bombs dropped and guns fired was intense. If you weren’t in the trenches, you were either killed or wounded. It was very surreal to see how quickly people would die in the war. The people who survived were tremendously fortunate. I thought it was pretty crazy how the bombs would go off at all hours of the day. There was never any resting time for the soldiers. It was extremely harsh for them in the war, with very little to eat and no time to rest.
It was very enlightening to see how the room full of students who were so willing and ready to go to war, turned into a bunker full of soldiers who were scared to death and literally going crazy. The soldiers became more psychotic each time a bomb was dropped. It was very interesting to see how as soon as the bombing would stop the soldiers would very quickly get out of their bunkers and wait for the other side to come out so they could shoot at them. It seemed to me like World War I was nothing less than a massacre with people just running into their own death. This is hard for me to fathom. I felt the movie spoke volumes about how bad the war conditions actually were when it how elated the soldiers were to get food. It was sad to see how death was so natural during the War. When people were dying in the hospital, the doctors just continued on like there was nothing that could be done,