本片改编自德国作家雷马克的同名小说，围绕一名在一战中的普通德国士兵保罗·鲍曼（理查德·托马斯 Richard Thomas饰），作为整个西线残酷战争中的小小缩影。战争的残酷性和毁灭性使他的英雄主义彻底破灭。保罗从迷恋战争到目睹战争后的心灰意冷，他才意识到战争的恐怖及其对人性的摧残。尾声，死一般沉寂的前线出现了鸟鸣，保罗循声而找。突然一句战地报告打破了这短暂的宁静与和谐，影片在“西部前线一切平静”中结束。
本部由美国导演德尔伯特·曼于1979年翻拍的电视版本《西线无战事》，在当年电视艾美奖上获得多项提名，并荣获金球奖最佳电视电影。1930年拍摄的版本已成为反战题材的经典之作，本作虽在艺术创新性上不如旧作，但导演仍以沉重的笔触和纯熟的手法，道尽战争的荒谬无情。

<Content> is an ambient 21st century road movie from Chris PETIT whose <Radio On> (1979) has become a cult road classic, about drift and driving’s trancelike state rather than destination and the unfolding of the road. It is about life in the rearview mirror, memory, modern technology (the You Tube generation, email seduction) and the new landscape of the big shed, and driving into the flatlands of late middle age, fathers and sons, growing up in the cold war, genocide and assassination, and the postwar landscapes of Europe and the USA, and how life looks now, seen by a six-year-old from the back of a car.

Matthew Evans once trained as a chef before he crossed to the dark side of the industry and became a restaurant reviewer. After five years and 2,000 restaurant meals as the chief reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald, he came to the slow realisation that chefs don’t have the best produce in the land, normal people who live close to the land do. So he moved to Tasmania, to a small patch of earth, where he’s raising pigs and sheep, milking a cow and waiting for his chickens to start laying.