A couple of weeks ago I went to a preview screening of Conclave, the papal thriller that's out in cinemas now, and enjoyed it a whole lot. It left me interested in what the director, Edward Berger, had made before, which pretty much instantly had me slapped in the face by the fact that I hadn't yet seen All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix.
This large-scale war movie, based on a truly iconic novel and taking a gritty look at the experience of young soldiers on the front lines of the First World War, is absolutely astounding, as a raft of Oscar wins showed. I can't believe I only just watched it, and really think you should make sure you've done the same.
The film takes a long view of the war by putting us in the shoes of Paul, a young man who leaves school to join the German army with some of his friends. We stick with him as he goes through training and then journeys to the front, and it doesn't take long for things to get harrowing.
This is a staunchly anti-war film, after all, from a famously anti-war novel, and it really drills home how terrible the conditions were for the majority of participants in the conflict. Many of the most upsetting things to happen to Paul and those around him aren't even during battles, as the conditions in field hospitals and conquered towns deteriorate.
The best streaming services aren't just the ones with content that is easy to watch, and Netflix hit it out of the park with All Quiet on the Western Front. It's a film that I can tell will live long in the memory – far more so than the enjoyable but more surface-level Conclave, for that matter.
No wonder it was such an awards success – taking home the Academy Awards for international feature, production design, score and cinematography, which is quite a foursome. That sort of success is what streaming services like Netflix dream of when they finance big projects, and it'll be fascinating to see if and when Netflix will ever beat that tally on a single movie.
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