History Film / AllQuietOnTheWesternFront2022

* CallForward: A German general who just sent the peace party through the lines says that "the Social Democrats" are destroying the country and that Germany can win as long as it can hold out. This is an allusion to the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth stab-in-the-back]]" myth, the idea that the German army was undefeated in the field but was betrayed by disloyal elements at home, like, say, Jews. This was a lie--the German army had been retreating for three solid months, and it was the generals like Hindenburg and Ludendorff who demanded that the politicians make peace--but it became powerful propaganda for Hitler and the Nazis.

* TableSpace: Brixdorf has dinner with a German general. The lavish food on the table is itself a jarring contrast with the lives of the common soldiers, but also, Brixdorf and the general are on opposite ends of a long table, further emphasizing the isolation of the German high command.

* DrivenToSuicide: Unwilling to live as a cripple, Paul and Kat's maimed comrade Tjaden repeatedly stabs himself in the neck with a fork and bleeds out much to their horror.

* VomitIndiscretionShot: A soldier turns around and vomits into the trench, as all the men stand at the ready, waiting for the French to come.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The gang is sitting around eating their stolen goose when they see some French peasant women, with a cow, passing by. A soldier named Franz goes chasing off after them, and the other laugh, until they realize that Franz isn't coming back. He's deserting. After a beat, they blink and go back to their food. Eventually, Franz does return later at night with a woman's scarf as a souvenir.(TruthInTelevision as the desertion rate in the demoralized German army went up sharply in the last weeks of the war.)

* WhamShot: While eating food found in a recently captured French dugout, Paul and his comrades are alarmed by the sight of rats escaping the dugout and the sound of mechanical rumbling outside. Realizing that they are about to face a French counterattack, they rush outside to the trench and man their positions. They are shocked to see not one but an entire wave of French Saint-Chamond tanks slowly advancing out of the fog.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The gang is sitting around eating their stolen goose when they see some French peasant women, with a cow, passing by. A soldier named Franz goes chasing off after them, and the other laugh, until they realize that Franz isn't coming back. He's deserting. After a beat, they blink and go back to their food. (TruthInTelevision as the desertion rate in the demoralized German army went up sharply in the last weeks of the war.)

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Matthias Erzberger was a real person who did in fact sign the armistice.

It is the first ever German-language film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's iconic 1929 novel, ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront''. The film is set in 1917-18 and the last year and a half of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Paul Bäumer (Creator/DanielBruhl) is a 17-year-old schoolboy who, along with his buddies Albert, Franz, and Ludwig, volunteer for the Imperial German Army after getting a patriotic talk from their teacher. They do not know that the army uniforms they are receiving have been taken from corpses.

The boys are sent to the trenches where they come under the wing of a veteran sergeant, Stanislaus "Kat" Katczynski. The mud, blood, and horror of the trenches quickly strips the boys of their patriotic enthusiasm. Time passes, and the fortunes of war turn against Germany, and the German army goes into retreat. While the surviving boys try to make it to the end of the war alive, German Minister of Finance Matthias Erzberger is sent to the French, to beg for an armistice.

''All Quiet on the Western Front'' is a 2022 film from Germany directed by Edward Berger.

* DecoyProtagonist: The opening battle scene follows a soldier named Heinrich as he goes over the top and into hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. He is killed in that attack and the next few scenes show how his uniform is stripped off him and recycled.