After its final credits, easy to define it as The Film. for the simple motif to discover the war from a sensitive, so different perspective. for the science of detail. for the wise social critic. for impecable performances. for the admirable story. and, maybe, for special feeling who, in great measure, is its basic gift. a film about people. and their answers to a terrible challenge. for me, decades ago, the occasion for discover Erich von Stroheim in one of his magnificent roles. a film who must see. for to remind. values, virtues and the real force of cinema.

When I saw the ending of this film, I realised I saw this film as a boy many decades ago.Jean Renoir's, La Grande Illusion is set during The Great War. The film was made in 1937 and so its depiction of the Germans has not been tainted with the actions of the Nazis in World War 2.The story begins with two French officers, Lieutenant Marichal (Jean Gavin) and Captain De Boeldueu (Pierre Fresnay) taken to a Prisoner of War camp where the inmates have been digging a tunnel. After several attempts to escape, the French officers get sent to a castle high up the mountains run by Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim.) He is an intimidating looking, flamboyant but courteous officer we met earlier on in the film who treated the captured French officers very civilly.Rauffenstein sees in De Boeldueu an old way of life run by the aristocracy which is now at risk with the growing middle class in Europe with their newly acquired wealth. There are many times we know that De Boeldueu's word as an officer counts more to Rauffenstein.The film as another sub text about people in this camp trying to get along with people of different classes, religion, colour and nationality. One of the person Marichal will eventually escape with is a French Jew, one of the inmates in the camp who is ignored at times by the officers is black. When Marechal is leaving the first camp he tries to tell the incoming British officers about the tunnel they have been digging it falls to deaf ears as they cannot understand French.The inmates are united as they plan to escape, dig the tunnel and hide the dirt. They feel camaraderie when the British officers boost morale by putting on a stage show and the looks on their faces when one of them appears in drag for the first time, highlighting the fact that they have not seen a female for months or years.The film is in French but has a smattering of German and English. In some ways the film set the template for the second world war POW films like The Great Escape but this movie dos not have the tense excitement of such an action film that would follow three decades later. Then again it is more than just a film about prisoners escaping, more a character piece which also makes the film slightly stage bound and even slow moving at times.

'La Grande Illusion' is one of those films that reaffirm a film lover's belief that cinema as an art form can be used by filmmakers to bring people together. The screenplay for the film written by Renoir and Charles Spaak is extremely deep and multi layered. Although the film is set during the WW1 era, the timing of the making and release of the film is very important. This was released when the Nazi party in Germany was becoming more and more powerful and another global war was imminent. I can't help but think that this film was Renoir's attempt to make people stray away from the extremism that they were getting influenced by. Although it didn't achieve its intended objective, one can't help but admire the artist's intentions.If one has to summarise 'La Grande Illusion' in one phrase, I think the phrase to be used is 'the power of humanism'. Renoir loves every single character in the film. Not just the French soldiers, even the German soldiers get treated with respect. The Germans are not stereotypical caricatures as is found in some other films of this era. The German officers treat their French prisoners with kindness. This shows Renoir understood that there were ordinary, innocent German people who were caught in the middle of the wars being instigated by the politicians in power. Apart from underlining the humanism and the similarity between the soldiers on all sides, the film also works on other themes. The film explores the changing times. We see the men who have been detached from the outside world due to the war feel surprised when they hear that women are keeping their hair short. One of them equates this appearance with the appearance of a boy. This is clearly Renoir commenting upon the progress women were making at the time in trying to gain equality. We also get the angle of the changing nature of the class distinctions. Rauffenstein and Boeldieu belonged to the higher classes. They understand and respect each other even though they belong to Germany and France respectively. We see them reminisce about the old times and talk about how they feel out of place in a fast changing world where the class distinctions are getting distorted as they embark on an era where people belonging to lower classes as well as Jews will be equal to them. We also get a subtle introspection on the concept of masculinity in this changing society. Renoir through his visuals shows how all the characters are at times literally and at times thematically trapped by the war. We get his signature shots of frames within frame to metaphorically imply that the characters are trapped. Every character, be it French or German is trapped mentally and physically by the war. Even a high officer like Rauffenstein feels trapped in his claustrophobic chamber. They are all detached from the outside world. They want freedom, but are apprehensive about whether they will be ready for what awaits them on the outside once they get their 'freedom'. This internal apprehension of not being ready to live on the outside reminded me of 'The Shawshank Redemption'. Like Powell & Pressburger did with 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', Renoir is bidding farewell to an era where even wars were fought with a gentlemanly attitude. Although he does touch upon the class distinctions and some other aspects that plagued that earlier era, but he is primarily concerned with the humanism of that characters. So, we see the kindness between soldiers belonging to different nations. This can lead to a a criticism that the film is a bit overly romanticised and is a bit of a wish fulfillment exercise as it doesn't depict the brutalities of war. But I think a brutally real account of WW1 was never Renoir's vision. In the midst of the rise of the Nazi Party and the huge possibility of another war, he wanted to make a film that makes the viewers renounce extremism and in the process instill the spirit of a unified Europe, no matter how unrealistic it may seem. This is why I think 'La Grande Illusion' will work brilliantly as a double feature with Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory'. While the first shows soldiers from different nations treating each other with kindness, the latter shows French officers being monstrously merciless to their own French colleagues.Renoir's visual style is beyond impressive. He uses very little editing in most scenes, instead he constantly keeps moving the camera to reveal other characters in the room or to reveal new parts of the interior which were earlier not visible in the frame. He also uses deep focus effectively to make the visual language of the film very character-inclusive in the sense that all the characters find importance in a scene. This inclusive nature of his style executed by tracking shots is epitomised by the famous scene involving the singing of 'La Marseillaise', a scene where he practically uses no cuts.Performance wise, I'll give special mention to Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim and Pierre Fresnay. 'La Grande Illusion' is a film that I can watch over and over again and get something new out of it on each viewing. It is rich in humanism, thematic depth and Renoir's brilliant directorial skills. The title of the film itself is layered and open to many interpretations. What was the grand illusion? Is it the illusion that one can achieve freedom from the suffering by escaping from prison camps or is it the illusion that the world that awaits these soldiers after the war ends will be the same as the one that they left behind? Or is war itself the grand illusion that creates barriers between human beings who are all the same, but get divided based on geographical borders? Maybe it is one of them, maybe it is all of them.

During WWI, French aviators aristocratic Captain de Boeldieu and working class Lieutenant Maréchal are taken prisoners. Boeldieu and the victorious aristocrat German aviator von Rauffenstein actually has a lot in common. The two captives have differing experiences finally arriving in Wintersborn prison commanded by von Rauffenstein. The prison duo and Rosenthal try to escape.There are some interesting parts in the first half. It's about 50 minutes when they get to the castle prison. A modern POW escape movie would send them to one place and let the tension built. The second half is closer to that idea. The castle prison isn't the most impressive or the most forbidding. That holds back the movie a little.The characters are well drawn. The actors are very natural. Beside an escape movie, this is very much a relationship movie. It's their different backgrounds and their connections that make this more. It's a fairly compelling movie but it's not really a war movie. There is very little action or even gun fire. This is more of a human relations movie. I do wish that the original duo stay together throughout the movie. That way their relationship could develop more.