The Grand Illusion (1937)

Having hated Jean Renoir's "masterpiece" The Rules of the Game, I was a little reluctant to see The Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion). It turns out that this film is vastly superior in every way imaginable. The film, which is set during World War 1, spends most of its time in various German prisoner of war camps. These camps feature officers from the armies of various nations. The main characters, which end up in several camps, are French. They spend most of the film trying to escape from the camp and eventually do escape from one and then attempt to get to Switzerland, a neutral country, so that they can safely return to France and aid in the war effort. While the first half of this film is a little slow and the message a little vague, the second half is quite interesting and a very powerful anti-war film.

Of the actors in this film, the only one I have heard of is Erich von Stroheim, a famous director and Oscar-nominated actor from Sunset Boulevard, who plays the leader of one of the camps. Von Stroheim does not play a lead in this film, although his part is reasonably important and reasonably well-acted. The other actors, whom I know little about, are also quite good.

Thematically, this film is clearly an anti-war film. Renoir suggests that the notion of war solving anything is simply "a grand illusion". The film also looks at class distinctions. Unlike The Rules of the Game which satirizes 1930s French society and makes little impact on me, the message here is a lot more clear. The film suggests that high-ranking officials in war serve no real purpose in the real world and are ill-prepared to do anything but lead a war. As one officer says on his deathbed "For a commoner, dying in a war is a tragedy. But for you and me, it's a good way out." Finally, Renoir briefly touches on the question of anti-Semitism. As this film was made in the late 1930s, Hitler's German anti-Semitic policies were well underway when this film was made. The Jewish character in this film, despite being from a wealthy family, does not attempt to distance himself from commoners like the rest of the aristocrats in this film and instead helps people across class lines by sharing his parcels of food, therefore rebuffing Jewish stereotypes.

While this film is usually regarded as of lesser-quality than Renoir's The Rules of the Game, this film is still hailed as a triumph of French cinema and considered one of the greatest films of all-time. When asked which two films he would take with him on a modern-day ark, Orson Welles answered this film and "something else". This film was also the first-ever foreign film to be nominated for an Oscar for best picture (losing to You Can't Take it With You). This may not be the greatest film I have ever seen, but it is fairly close.

91.5/100
A-

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