Epic reminder of the horrors of war
THE World War I epic film All Quiet On The Western Front thoroughly deserves its seven Baftas. If the horror of war depicted in this film could be appreciated by politicians, diplomats and generals, there would be far fewer conflicts in the world.
The movie is a disturbing and shocking insight into what World War I was really like: death, mutilation, lice, cloying mud, rats, raids into no-man’s land, gas attacks and the sheer terror of going over the top.
How did the soldiers in the Great War keep their sanity amid such carnage? My grandfather and great-uncle fought in the Battle of the Somme and I still find it difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of the carnage.
On the first day of this battle, the bloodiest 24 hours in British military history, there were 60,000 casualties and 19,240 men died. How do you measure the suffering involved in each one of those deaths? pETER HENRICK, Birmingham.
IT’S not hard to determine which actors, foreign language film and director are tipped to win Oscars. Take a look at the quality of ensemble acting in All Quiet On The Western Front and be moved by German pianist Volker Bertelmann’s evocative score.
professor KIT THOMpSON, Cambridge. THE excellent film All Quiet On The Western Front is hailed as a warning for youngsters not to be influenced by nationalistic Far Right leaders.
But how would you pigeonhole Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the greatest threat to world peace, in that political spectrum?
His speeches are nationalistic, just like Hitler’s, and he sends Russia’s young men to war for political reasons, but he’s not Far Right.
MICHAEL J. pRITCHARD, penn, Bucks. ALL Quiet On The Western Front won seven Baftas and is tipped for Oscar success— a remarkable achievement for a film based on a Remarquable 1929 novel. VINCENT HEFTER, Richmond, Surrey.