A young German soldier eagerly enlists for World War I and discovers what the trenches are really like: mud, terror, attrition and death without meaning. Berger's version strips the sentiment out of Remarque's novel. In its place, he gives you a long and physically overwhelming case against the romance of war.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a 2022 action, drama and war film directed by Edward Berger. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 cinematography, 1 editing and 1 sound), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Saving Private Ryan uses several of the same techniques.
Draining most of the color from the image, leaving gray skies, cold blues and muted browns. The world looks stripped of comfort and hope, and you can't enjoy it as pretty.
How this film uses it
James Friend's cinematography drains the color out of the Western Front with clinical thoroughness. The mud is gray-brown, the sky is gray-white and the faces are gray. This is the first thing the film tells you: in this world, heroism doesn't look good on camera. Color only comes back in brief flashes of beauty, and the war immediately puts them out.
Where to see it
The trench sequences. There is so little color that the film stops feeling like a dramatic reconstruction. It feels like a record of bodies being worn down.
Refusing the heroic habits of war films, like grand wide shots, rousing speeches and clear victories. Combat is shown from ground level as chaotic, anonymous and traumatic.
How this film uses it
Berger stages his battles so they look unplanned, the opposite of choreographed. Soldiers die by accident, from the wrong direction and for no tactical reason you can make out. The editing avoids everything you expect from heroic combat. There is no decisive action and no moment where one man's choices matter. Death just arrives as part of how the war runs, and the film never turns it into a story event.
Where to see it
The tank attack sequence. The machines of industrial warfare are filmed as something that simply processes human beings. With the battle staged this way, heroism has no room to happen.
Mixing battle sound the way a soldier would hear it, with chaotic, physical noise coming from every direction. Nothing is tidied up for your comfort, so you feel inside the fight.
How this film uses it
The sound design was built to copy what an artillery bombardment does to the body. You get the thudding bass of shells, the ringing that follows and the silence before another wave. Your body reacts before your mind can process it. I feel like the sound makes the film's case most directly, because your body already knows what your mind is being told.
Where to see it
The artillery bombardment sequences. The sound is designed at frequencies that make the audience react physically, so you experience the front through your nervous system.
Keeping the worst violence outside the frame. You hear it or see its effects and other people's reactions, and your imagination does the rest.
How this film uses it
Berger balances graphic violence with careful restraint. Some of the film's worst moments are only heard, or you only see what is left afterward. In the armistice negotiation scenes, men decide to end the killing with paperwork while the fighting at the front goes on. These scenes describe an atrocity without showing it, which is the bureaucratic horror of the war's final hours.
Where to see it
The armistice signing intercut with the continuing battle. You see the political decision, and you see that it fails to stop the killing. Men keep dying off screen while the treaty is completed.
Questions
All Quiet on the Western Front: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does All Quiet on the Western Front use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in All Quiet on the Western Front (2022): Desaturated War Palette, Anti-Epic Combat Staging, Immersive Combat Sound Design and Off-Screen Atrocity.
Who directed All Quiet on the Western Front?
Edward Berger directed All Quiet on the Western Front, released in 2022. CineCode also covers Conclave (2024), Ballad of a Small Player (2025).
What films are similar to All Quiet on the Western Front?
Films that share techniques with All Quiet on the Western Front include Saving Private Ryan (1998), Dunkirk (2017), 1917 (2019), Life is Beautiful (1997).
