The weapons of war are terrifying inventions that bring only pain. While words can grasp at the horrors of war, they can never fully express them. Reading about war can only hint at the devastation of battle: only through experience can you truly understand. Both the original novel and Milestone's adaptation attempt to grasp at war's horrors through a visual medium ... knowing full well that you can only use art to begin to touch the hellscape of war. Milestone's goal was to depict the ghastly injures and death these weapons dealt. And, while the film's imagery might not completely encompass the real experience, it's pretty damn unsettling. The major weapons featured in the movie are rifles, shells, bombs, barbed wire, machine guns, and hand-to-hand armaments such as knives, bayonets, and spades. That's a lot of weapons. Even by today's standards, the battles scenes are super gruesome, even with black-and-white blood. Machine guns mow down lines of men. Soldiers trip over barbed wire, shredding their flesh in the process. The hand-to-hand combat scene in the trenches is harrowing — watching swarms of men stab, slash, and beat each other in claustrophobic quarters is not meant to be taken lightly. Tanks and airplanes made their wartime debut during World War I. Kat mentions both to Paul while discussing the Germans' struggles to defend their lines... right before being killed by an air raid. Though the high war-tech invented for WWI is mentioned in the film, we don't actually see a lot of it in action. This was likely due to technical limitations.
Wartime trauma is another huge factor in the adaptation. Beyond the physical violence, Milestone also focuses on the psychological trauma the weapons of WWI reaped. During Paul's first stint on the Front, we begin to see the mental toll they have on the soldiers. For one thing the soldiers had nearly an entire week of no sleep because of the constant noise of bombs going off near and even worse, they never knew when one of those shells would hit. Kemmerick suffers even worse than Paul, mentally eroding to the point that he tries to leave the safety of the dugout. Other cases of mental anguish include Paul's depression over killing the French soldier and Albert's suicidal longing after learning his leg has been amputated. At that's not even getting into "shell shock" for after the war ends. Paul suffers from depression when he returns home. Kemmerick has nightmares after witnessing Behn's death, and Paul feels guilty over surviving when his friends haven't.
Due to constant bombardments and barrages of men advancing into machine-gun fire, The appropriately named No Man's Land is a nightmarescape of mud, shell holes, gnarled barbed wire, splintered trees, and, of course, corpses scattered about like seeds thrown onto a field. Consider Paul's experience during the German offensive. The church—a holy place where men are meant to gather to worship—is blasted into ruins. The graveyard next to it is hit with shells, literally raising the dead from their graves to mingle among the living. When Paul takes cover in the crater, he's forced to stab a French soldier. He then attempts to comfort the soldier by providing him a drink, but all he has to offer is muddied, bloody water lying stagnant at the bottom of the crater. Even a basic, life-sustaining necessity such as clean water is absent within No Man's Land. In comparison, when the soldiers take leave from the Front, they're often surrounded by pastoral nature. They eat their fill of beans and bread and lie beneath a tree that remains intact rather than uprooted by shell blasts. That's just how tough times are. Another time, Paul and his comrades find a river to bathe in. With more than enough water to drink, the soldiers get to clean away the dirt and grime that covers them during their time at the Front. Again, they're excited by a cold river. The differences in the landscape help show how the soldiers' states of mind change—it's all location. Away from the Front, the landscape can provide the physical needs of the soldier, allowing him to turn his attention to more social considerations. He can discuss the purpose and worth of the war, take care of his body by eating and bathing…and even get close to hot French girls. But every aspect of No Man's Land requires the soldier to focus on survival and only survival. Every broken tree, muddied crater, and bombed-out building reminds us that death is an ever-present danger—death of the soldiers, death of nature, death of everything.
Kemmerick's boots have Italian leather, comfy insoles, the works. But the previous owner was gunned down while wearing them. The owner before him? Blown up. The owner before the owner before him? Shredded by shrapnel. We're first introduced to this jinxed pair of footwear when Kemmerick parades them about during boot camp. He places them jokingly on Mueller's shoulders. Since the army lives on its feet, a soldier needs proper boots for the long marches and days of work—especially on the Western Front. Between the mud and unhygienic conditions, soldiers require good boots to prevent blisters, frostbite, and foot fungus. Later, Kemmerick's wounded by shrapnel. As he lies dying in a field hospital, Paul and his friends visit him and Mueller notices the boots. Mueller asks Kemmerick if he can have the boots since he won't need them. As the group leaves, Mueller confesses to Paul he didn't want to get the boots over Paul. Mueller's confession shows us how the war has changed these young men. Mueller has to think about his survival at all times. Although asking for the boots upsets Kemmerick—it's basically the equivalent of saying Kemmerick would die. Kemmerick can't use the boots, but another soldier can. In fact, they could save another soldier's life. We see that survival has to always be at the forefront in a soldier's mind, sacrificing more "civilized" considerations such as decorum and thoughtfulness. In the end, Kemmerick does die, and Paul takes the boots for Mueller. Mueller's shown proudly marching with his new boots, but he's injured during an offensive in No Man's Land. Next, we see Peter marching in the boots—and then Peter's shown being killed while going over the top.
"Oscar" —a rat that hangs out with the soliders— chews on a piece of the soldiers' bread, and Kat throws his shoe at the little beastie. While Kat tosses the bread aside, Tjaden retorts he'd regret that choice. Rats aren't thought of as being so brazen about snatching food from people, but in the trenches, the humans have entered the rats' world: the world of survival—kill or be killed; eat or be eaten. Later, the men are starving and Kat returns from foraging with stale bread and no butter—the same food that Oscar foraged from the soldiers earlier. Rats come pouring into their dugout and the soldiers begin killing them with their spades. Immediately afterward, the Allied offensive starts, and we see the soldiers fighting in the trenches. They use all manner of hand-to-hand weapons to kill each other, including the same spades they used to kill the rats. The contrast shows us the equalizing of man and beast as a result of the war. Both live in holes; both forage for food; both fight, kill, and bite to survive. The film suggests that we shouldn't talk about "dogs of war" so much as "rats of war."
