High death count: check!
All Quiet on the Western Front
This German World War I flick focuses on a young German lad who joins the war and how he and his buddies quickly go from "yeah, this'll be great" to "WTF am I doing here" in the trenches against the French. Nice cinematography and effects that really focus on the dirty and sometimes insane business that is war. It goes a bit long but we were definitely entertained throughout the film. My only problem is I couldn't really feel for the protagonist and his crew because they all chose to be there.
American Primeval (S1)
In this (so far) one season, six episode Western, a woman and her child need to get from point A to point B without dying of dysentery, being caught by bounty hunters, scalped by the natives, ambushed by brigands, or fighting against a Mormon army. What? Yes, you heard me. This really portrays the Wild West as super wild with high levels of violence and at least one mandatory death per episode. The script is pretty wild too, with characters passing the idiot ball around regularly. If you don't think about the "(s)he should have done [something smart] instead", you can give this one a try.
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
All Quiet on the Western Front and American Primeval (S1)
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The book (and the first two movies) spend a lot more time on how Paul and his classmates were indoctrinated to believe war was a glorious adventure and how anxious they were to get to the front lest the war end too soon. Then the balance is spent being disillusioned, first in training, then at the front.
ReplyDeleteThe Netflix version is visually effective, but the story was changed in a way that subverts the actual message of the book. I wrote a post about it on my blog a while back.
American Primeval was a little too high on the gore and stupidity for us to get through more than a couple of episodes. Just not our thing.