Westfront 1918

G. W. Pabst’s first sound film focuses on four soldiers stationed in France in the final months of World War I, juxtaposing life on the battlefield with the home front’s blind ignorance of the harsh realities of war. Long unavailable, the newly restored Westfront 1918 is a visceral, sobering antiwar statement that is as urgent today as when it was made. “Westfront 1918 has little dialogue but gives tremendous dramatic force to natural sounds (Pabst refused to use music). . . . Released to tremendous international acclaim, it still must be included among the finest war films ever made” (Georges Sadoul, Dictionary of Films).