Today itâs time to recommend a movie. German, neither more nor less, and last yearâs winner of the Oscar for best foreign film: No News on the Front (Im Westen nichts Neues).
The film takes place in Germany in 1917, a year before the signing of the armistice of World War I. A group of young people decide to volunteer in the German army to go to the front, encouraged by their teachers. However, the reality they encounter is brutally different: war is not the heroic and glorious scenario that they had been promised, but rather a hell of suffering and constant fighting in the trenches.
âNo News on the Frontâ is an intense and emotionally heartbreaking film, with difficult scenes that starkly tell how war transforms these young and innocent students, molding them under the yoke of a terrifying and merciless reality.
As a curiosity, the film is based on the German book of the same name and is the third time it has been made into a movie. In 1930, it won the Oscar for best film and in 1979 the Golden Globe for best television film (thanks Wikipedia).
No News on the Front, can currently be seen on Netflix, which acquired worldwide distribution rights. If you have 2 and a half hours of free time and you like war movies, give it a chance. Surely, like me, you will not be disappointed.