New German war movie (2022) ‘Im Westen nichts Neues’ is one of the best World War I movies ever made. Looks like authentic battlefield footage. Carnage that feels real

One of my favorite scenes is when the tanks arrive.

I had the feeling I was watching a SciFi movie and not a movie set during World War I.

Even though these early tanks were very crude they looked very futuristic contrasted with the barren landscape of a World War I battlefield.

They made it look as though I was watching a battle unfold on Mars or some other ’empty’ planet.

Very interesting scene.

All the war scenes look realistic. You feel the fear of being hit, getting killed or having limbs torn off, or EVEN worse: burning to death.

The plot is simple and not very captivating. It’s also rather predictable. The plot isn’t why you should watch this movie.

You should watch this movie to get a feel for what fights during the first world war were like for frontline soldiers.

I have seen many war movies and a lot of them try too hard, they’re more like action movies than realistic war movies.

Not this one.

You see the absurdity of charging heavily entrenched lines.

You see brutal hand to hand combat.

Well, maybe you see a bit too much of this, because am guessing not many world war one soldiers died of bayonet wounds… Here there are a lot of such deaths. Also spades are generously used to send people off to Walhalla… I doubt this happened so frequently… Even during the American Civil War when rifles and artillery were not as advanced bayonet wounds were somewhat of a rarity compared to wounds inflicted by fire arms.

But ok, bayonets and spades were part of the game of killing too.

You get to know very little about the characters.

As with all new movies and series a child’s death has to play a role, since no movie or series can be made anymore without one. (Eye roll).

Even though the characters are not particularly interesting and don’t evolve much they serve the purpose of letting you feel what it was like going through that industrially perfected meat grinder that was World War I.

The performances are more than excellent. Especially the facial expressions of the main character are spot on in every scene.

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Dunkirk, 1917 or The Forgotten Battle. All relatively recent war movies.

Few movies manage to make me fear for my life as if it’s me plowing through the mud dodging bullets and not a fictional character on a screen.

The minimalist, but oh so ominous music also works really well.

Go watch it and feel the earth tremble under enemy shelling.