Westfront 1918 (1930)

IMDb plot summary: A group of German solders fight on the front line in France at the end of World War I.

Directed by George Wilhelm Pabst. Starring Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, and Hans-Joachim Mobis.

Westfront 1918 centers on the German forces on the front lines during World War I. We follow a group of soldiers and their battles. In many ways this reminds me a lot of the film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, also released this year, but this is a far more visually centered movie. While All Quiet used dialogue and plot-based narrative the further the story, Westfront 1918 relies primarily on visual images. Some of these are incredibly moving. There are these long extended sequences just aiming the camera at one particular place in the field and seeing this wave of soldiers coming and coming and coming across the camera's point of view, which really brings out the seemingly endless fight and the vast amounts of human people who were sacrificed to achieve these goals. G.W. Pabst is the director. I'm not very familiar with him, but he apparently did a lot of silent films, and that's really evident in the way that he frames and shows the images on screen. He's clearly someone who knows how to frame and shoot images to convey emotion. I think this is one that's going to stick with me in some way or another.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Westfront 1918 > Ripley's Game

Westfront 1918 < Woman in the Dunes

Westfront 1918 > Space Sweepers

Westfront 1918 < The Artist

Westfront 1918 > Band of Robbers

Westfront 1918 < Foolproof

Westfront 1918 > Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Westfront 1918 < The Death of Stalin

Westfront 1918 < The Sound of Music

Westfront 1918 > The Minus Man

Westfront 1918 < Akira

Final spot: #1216 out of 3636, or 67%.