An analysis of All Quiet on the Western Front and The Bridge on the River Kwai
All Quiet on the Western Front and The Bridge on the River Kwai are, unquestionably, two masterpieces of film and storytelling. Beneath their grandiose cinematics and virtuoso camerawork lie two harrowing and introspective tales that grapple with such weighty, politically charged themes as the brutality of war, the supposed lunacy of twentieth-century ultranationalism, the relentless pursuit of honour as an exercise in futility, and the decidedly unromantic effects that the terror, meaninglessness, and obstinacy of war have on the human condition.
Perhaps what is most significant about the two films, however, is their sheer realism and believability, in large part due to the unique circumstances in which they were conceived; both films saw their theatrical releases in the turbulent years following the very same wars they portrayed. Writers and directors, with the traumatisms of world war still fresh in their minds, refuted traditional cinema’s romanticisation of war as a noble quest of patriotic duty, glory, and honour, working instead to tell brutal stories of war as it was actually experienced, to replace those false Hollywood tropes with visions of fear, butchery, and outright insanity, and, most of all, to craft characters that are frighteningly and wholeheartedly human. All Quiet and Kwai are very distinct films in their own right, their narratives framed through very different lenses and perspectives, but the core themes they deal with are certainly one of the same, both portraying a rather futile view of nationalism as the driving force behind the brutal insanity of war.
All Quiet presents an agonising and traumatic take on the nature of war. It tells the story of a nineteen-year-old German student named Paul Baumer who, with his friends, enlists to fight in the First World War after being captivated (and admittedly, pressured) by their nationalistic teacher Kantorek’s stirring speeches that detail a romantic vision of dying for one’s country. When they arrive in the trenches, however, they quickly realise that those patriotic sentiments are but fruitless clichés in the unimaginable brutality of the Western Front, where the death of one’s fellow man is merely a petty inconvenience.
The film begins with a stirring and passionate, yet somewhat uncomfortable scene where Kantorek delivers his vigorous address to his students, encouraging them to enlist in the war. In this scene, and all throughout the beginning of the film, for that matter, the idea of nationalism is presented with a passionate and romantic, perhaps even a lovingly fanatical tone. It seemed to appeal most fervently to an intense nineteenth-century perception of nationalism, one that placed the love of one’s nation at the very heart of his identity and one that saw dying for one’s country as, ultimately, the noblest sacrifice one could make; it was seen as a privilege more than anything else. Throughout the film, however, as the viewer begins to witness the terrible conditions of the Western Front and the horrifying brutality of war, this tone shifts and the viewer is revealed to the film’s true narrative drive, that being an aggressive and withering critique of nationalism as a divisive, manipulative, and hollow ideology that may be seized by the State and by powerful individuals to manipulate the populous into doing the most terrible of things. The film makes it clear to viewers that the pursuits of nationalism, the seemingly noble ideals of patriotism, and the willingness to defend one’s country are, ultimately, completely devoid of meaning and made entirely irrelevant when faced with the horrors of warfare. It asserts that soldiers on the front continue to fight not so much as to satisfy a hunger for national fervour than to ensure their own survival. The film presents a highly pessimistic narrative that is staunchly anti-war and seems to emphasise, first and foremost, the destructive impact that the mind-numbing terror of warfare has on an individual’s physical, mental, and psychological wellbeing. The film illustrates this most evidently as the viewer witnesses the character development of Baumer and his friends who, having been subjected to appalling conditions in the trenches like waterlogged dugouts, a lack of food and water, sporadic yet brutal shelling, and witnessing the sudden deaths of their friends, are transformed from innocent, lively schoolboys into hardened beings that lack even an ounce of humanity. For example, in one particular scene, Baumer and his friends go to visit an old comrade who was badly injured in the fighting. As they gather around his hospital bed, it becomes increasingly evident that their friend is dying a slow, excruciating death, yet all the boys can do is debate amongst themselves regarding who would inherit their friend’s pristine leather boots. This bleakly highlights how ingrained into daily life death has become and how numb the characters have grown to it amidst this ruinous environment, even when it comes for their closest of friends. The film also focuses on how war completely and utterly erodes any trace of humanity and character left in an individual, leaving them feeling out-of-place and estranged to any place other than the battlefield. Viewers witness this first-hand towards the latter half of the film, where Baumer returns to Germany on military leave, only to find himself incredibly disconnected from his family and community. When he converses with a few older gentlemen in a bar, their conversation quickly devolves into a violent argument amongst the men regarding military strategy with practically no regard for the lives of the men fighting those battles. Ultimately, the only place Baumer feels as though he belongs is on the Front, yet he returns to find his entire battalion dead and replaced with new recruits.
In a sense, All Quiet is an extraordinarily accurate, albeit dramatised manifestation of the First World War and its historical legacy. Due to immense technological advancements like the invention of the machine gun, the widespread use of tanks and aircraft, and the development of chemical weaponry, the conflict worked to completely revolutionise mankind’s perception of war, shifting it from the image of honourable soldiers marching abreast ready to die in the name of their nation’s glory to an image of impersonal, indifferent, and catastrophic killing, violence, and unimaginable suffering.
The Bridge on the River Kwai, by contrast, presents a much less dark and bleak outlook on the nature of war. Unlike All Quiet, its themes focus more on the absurdity, futility, and insanity of war rather than the outright brutality and suffering it causes. That said, however, Kwai undoubtedly takes an anti-war stance, even if it lacks the same shock value as All Quiet. The film follows Colonel Nicholson, a British army officer in the Second World War characterised by his commitment to integrity, his respect for honour, and his unwavering dedication to the values he holds true. The colonel and his men were ordered to surrender in the early stages of the Pacific campaign and were thus sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp where, under Colonel Saito, they are forced to build a bridge across the Kwai River in occupied Thailand to complete a Japanese railway. Saito, desperate to get the bridge done, orders all of Nicholson’s men to contribute to the construction, including officers. Nicholson cites that the Geneva Convention forbids officer-POWs from engaging in physical labour and refuses to work, opting instead to oversee the work of his men. In response, Saito locks Nicholson and his fellow officers in corrugated metal containers for days, subjecting them to appalling conditions. Nicholson’s resolve holds true, however, and Saito eventually grants his wishes.
Saito’s madness is revealed to the viewer early on in the film, what with his eccentricity and his frenetic personality. Nicholson, by contrast, is portrayed as a civilised man of great integrity who is willing to put both his life and the lives of his men on the line in defence of his ideals. Yet, when Saito grants Nicholson his wish of exempting officers from physical labour, the viewer begins to see Nicholson’s insanity taking hold. He insists that the men construct the bridge well, without sabotaging the effort, as he becomes obsessed with the pursuit of a nationalist idea of building a bridge that will stand in the pages of history as a triumph of British ingenuity and resolve, even in captivity. One particular scene that stands out with regards to this point is a scene where Major Clipton, the unit’s chief medical officer, questions Nicholson’s efforts, citing that their actions may be seen as collaborating with the enemy. In response, Nicholson explodes into a tirade, proclaiming his commitment to the pursuit of honour and showing the unwavering resolve of the British military, though he forgets that his obsession with upholding Britain’s glory ultimately works against the Allied war effort in assisting in the creation of a useful bridge for the transportation of Japanese resources. This works to uphold one of the core themes of the film; how the pursuit of honour in warfare can drive an individual insane and make him blind to common sense, emphasising a critique of nationalist ideals as being absurd and ultimately self-defeating. Whereas All Quiet illustrated this point by showing the viewer the butchery that was the Western Front, Kwai mocks nationalism by showing the characters’ descent into insanity.
By the end of the film, an American officer named Naval Commander Shears, who escaped from the camp early on, returns to the bridge with a special forces unit. Mere days after the bridge is completed, Shears and the task force sabotage it with explosives and blow the bridge to smithereens, illustrating most fervently the futility and pointlessness of war. All Quiet emphasised this point by showing the brutal deaths of beloved characters, while Kwai skillfully showed it by stomping on the efforts of the protagonists throughout the film and highlighting their complete and utter madness. The pointlessness and meaninglessness of war is a purveying theme in both films, which ultimately argue that the pursuit of ultranationalist ideals in war is self-defeating and self-limiting, causing unnecessary death, destruction, and suffering in the name of some ambiguous pursuit of national self-interest. The overarching message of both films is perhaps best summarised by a quote from Naval Commander Shears in Kwai’s third act, in which he argues that ultranationalism, war, and the pursuit of (individual and national) honour is of little importance in comparison to ‘living like a human being’.
‘You make me sick with your heroics. There’s a stench of death about you, you carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and the L-pills, they go well together, don’t they? And with you, it’s just one thing or the other; destroy the bridge or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this war. You and that Colonel Nicholson, you’re two of a kind, crazy with courage, for what? How to die like a gentleman, how to die by the rules, when the only important thing is how to live like a human being!’
Naval Commander Shears, The Bridge on the River Kwai
In evaluating the two films in their importance not only to the history of cinema but to the history of mankind as a whole, one might look to the arguments of Stephen K. Thorne and J.L. Granatstein as outlined in their articles for Legion Magazine. In his entry, Thorne takes a strong stance in arguing for All Quiet on the Western Front as the single most important war film ever made. He argues that All Quiet told a story that was big, repulsive, and frighteningly real, and that its brutal narrative gave viewers a valuable insight into what daily life was like on the Western Front. He claims that All Quiet’s themes surrounding the brutality of war, the way it made the characters (and consequently, the audiences) question what exactly they were fighting for, and the way it unashamedly disposed and mocked traditional understandings of glory and nationalism did away with established systems of thought at the time and worked to revolutionise common narratives in war cinema, which vicariously shaped the opinions of the populous. On the other hand, Granatstein argues that while All Quiet is certainly an extraordinary war film, its technological limitations, blunders in acting, and problematic storyline which he called ‘pro-German’ make calling it ‘the greatest war film of all time’ a rather considerable overstatement. He argues that war cinema in subsequent years has produced a great number of other films that are much more impactful in their narrative integrity and much stronger in their cinematic methodologies than All Quiet, the likes of which include Zulu, Saving Private Ryan, and, of course, The Bridge on the River Kwai. Granatstein argues that while All Quiet’s narrative was impactful in showing the loss of naïvety on part of the German schoolboys, it did too much to get audiences to sympathise with the German Empire, whose efforts in the Great War Granatstein sees as brutalising, destructive, and certainly not a faction that audiences should be sympathising with.
Having seen both films and having deconstructed their narratives, I would argue that there is much more merit to Granatstein’s argument than there is to Thorne’s; though that is not to say that Granatstein’s argument is essentially flawless. While All Quiet’s narrative is undoubtedly insightful, introspective, and harrowing, its acting and characters felt extremely fabricated, awkward, and unnatural at times, especially in comparison to The Bridge on the River Kwai’s expertly crafted personalities. Another incredibly valid criticism of All Quiet is its over-reliance on shock value and frightening scenes; while there is no doubt as to the brutality and savagery of war, one might argue that the film often tried too hard to push its themes with unnecessarily traumatising scenes, even for a black-and-white film. Finally, I believe that, while it is difficult to call it the greatest war film of all time, The Bridge on the River Kwai was certainly a much more impactful, intriguing, interesting, and, most of all, entertaining war film than All Quiet due to its incredible characters and narrative complexity. With that said, however, I think Granatstein’s criticisms of All Quiet as being ‘pro-German’ are rather ignorant of the fact and, I would argue, misses the point of the film entirely. The film is as pro-German as it is pro-French or pro-British, but it is anti-war first and foremost. To judge the film in this manner, and at that, to judge the history of World War One as purely the fault of Germany is to judge in an extremely polarising and ignorant manner; it must be understood that history and its legacy is not entirely black-and-white, that the actions of the German Empire were not completely evil in the same way that the actions of Britain, France, and the United States were not entirely good, but merely existing on a vast grey-area spectrum of war whose ambiguous moral boundaries are extraordinarily difficult to define.
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