There are war movies and war movies. This is one of the great ones that treat war for what it is: that there are no winners, only losers.
I have watched films about WWI from the point of view of the victors. This is my first time to watch it from the perspective of the other side.
But, always, it's young people who have to fight it underscoring, at it emphatically does, a great loss for an entire generation.
Felix Kammerer and Albrecht Schuch vividly portray the angst, despair and fear that soldiers feel in the trenches amid all the incessant violence.
The story itself is heart-rending as it tackles, in no uncertain terms, the tenuousness of living and the swiftness of death.
A counterpoint is the frenetic effort of the peacemakers to end the war. Matthias Erzberg is a real person. His efforts to end the war is juxtaposed with the irrational desire of generals to continue the fruitless war.
It has been said by other reviewers that it is a timely piece of cinema given the war in Ukraine. Man never learns. As pundits say, it's not history that repeats itself; it's man who repeats himself.
We have to thank a great cinematography that brings to vivid life the gore of war. Ditto a musical score that ushers in the impending doom.
Watch it soon and be disturbed.
I have watched films about WWI from the point of view of the victors. This is my first time to watch it from the perspective of the other side.
But, always, it's young people who have to fight it underscoring, at it emphatically does, a great loss for an entire generation.
Felix Kammerer and Albrecht Schuch vividly portray the angst, despair and fear that soldiers feel in the trenches amid all the incessant violence.
The story itself is heart-rending as it tackles, in no uncertain terms, the tenuousness of living and the swiftness of death.
A counterpoint is the frenetic effort of the peacemakers to end the war. Matthias Erzberg is a real person. His efforts to end the war is juxtaposed with the irrational desire of generals to continue the fruitless war.
It has been said by other reviewers that it is a timely piece of cinema given the war in Ukraine. Man never learns. As pundits say, it's not history that repeats itself; it's man who repeats himself.
We have to thank a great cinematography that brings to vivid life the gore of war. Ditto a musical score that ushers in the impending doom.
Watch it soon and be disturbed.