2022 – All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those movies that had some excellent visual effects, many of which I cannot see or identify. They were in the movie to add to the realism, nothing more. They were there to enhance the storytelling on a subliminal level. We aren’t supposed to know that we seeing a visual effect. And they did their job perfectly competently. Other than that, though, they were fairly unremarkable. The problem is that these kind of visual effects have become commonplace these days, and while I cannot deny that they were done well, I didn’t find anything about them that made them stand out to me, or raise them up above the visual effects from any other film.
You see, in my admittedly small bit of research, I couldn’t find anything that showed innovation, invention, or creativity. I was more impressed with the visual effects for the Best Picture winner, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and the visual effects for that movie weren’t even nominated for an Oscar. The war scenes were done perfectly well, but how often have we seen battle sequences that were just as realistic with period specific WWI explosions and gunfire. We see expert compositing, digital blood, and interesting lighting effects in nearly every other movie that’s been made for many decades. I just don’t understand how these effects, while good, were better than any other.
I read an article about the visual effects in this movie and one of the most impressive things of which the article boasted was the scene near the end of the movie where there was falling snow. Apparently, they filmed in the morning when it was actually snowing, but the weather didn’t last until the shoot was done, so the continuity was maintained by adding digital snow. See what I mean? Good, but not terribly impressive.
Another effect that the article mentioned was the scene where the insane General is ordering his soldiers to go back and fight until the armistice is in effect. The crowd of soldiers standing in front of his was made larger with computer generated visual effects. I would never have guessed it, but that is just standard fair for any movie worth its salt. Why was I supposed to be impressed by that? What am I missing?
Of course, there were more noticeable effects like the flame throwers on the battlefield, or the character of Tjaden stabbing himself in the throat with a fork, a very bloody and violent effect. But really I don’t understand, nor could I find any article or review that explains why All Quiet on the Western Front was nominated for Best Visual Effects. Now, I’m not saying that it wasn’t a powerful movie. I quite agree that it deserved its Best Picture nomination. But I don’t think I agree with its nomination in this category.