It doesn’t surprise me that Adolf Hitler banned this 1937 anti-war movie by Jean Renoir. It does, however, concern me that some people may not catch or will ignore the very beauty of this magnificent black and white. La Grande Illusion, with wonderfully-clear English subtitles, is not your usual type of war movie, for you will find no gore, special effects (like explosions) or intolerable cruelty depicted. As the director and co-writer Renoir puts it, the war of the movie, WWI, was a gentleman’s war quite unlike WWII. Having been a navy pilot in the war, Renoir may very well be right.

If this sounds boring to you and the fact that The Grand Illusion received the first Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film means little to you, let me be more specific.

As Jean Renoir is the son of the famous Impressionist painter, Pierre Renoir, it should come as no surprise that his movie is quite genteel like a cinematic work of art. It is only a public enemy to madmen wanting to take over the world (not just Hitler) and a mediocre movie to those who will not understand the movie.

You see, when two French pilots are shot down and captured by the Germans, the pilots are received so warmly as to make one wonder what the heck is going on. It seems more like a welcoming party between officers! Jean Gabin as Lt. Marechal wears the uniform Renoir wore in the war and Pierre Fresnay’s Capt. De Boldieu seems to be an old friend of the war-hating German commander played compassionately by Erich von Stroheim (Sunset Boulevard). Thus begins the surprising tale of what happens to these two men in Germany during WWI, including war camps more similar to a somewhat restricted summer camp and gentlemanly involvement with a pretty German widow and her girl.

You will be treated to a cabaret-like performance put on by cross-dressing French prisoners, ending with an announcement that the French army had scored a victory and Germans singing “La Marseille” with the French; also will you see that the aristocratic French captain agrees to help his working-class French POWs build a tunnel for escape.

Okay, you say, it‘s about the illusion of boundaries between people or male bonding despite differences, but what about the characters and acting? What about the quality of its appearance and sound since it‘s so old and the original was destroyed?

Rest assured that this movie has gone down in history as being possibly the most elusive and beautifully restored film by Criterion. The characters make history as well by not being stereotypical. Though there is a loud-mouthed, feminine-acting French actor (Julien Carette) who may rub some people the wrong way, there also is a rich, generous French Jew (Marcel Dalio) who becomes a very good friend to soft-spoken Lt. Marechal and a German officer who warns one of the Frenchmen that he knows about their tunnel and he may be shot while trying to escape.

The ending after 114 minutes finds our French buddies facing an uncertain new life and challenges, as indeed we all are, since wars no longer would be like WWI. The Grand Illusion may seem a bit surreal to our eyes today, but it’s surely a grand and democratic ideal to wish that people really could celebrate their similarities instead of hating their differences.

Concluding Thought

The camaraderie, occasional suspense and intelligent dialogue kept me absorbed, but one line stood out. A POW looked out the window and said something like, “Children are playing like soldiers out there and in here soldiers are playing like children.”

How true. Will such children ever grow up? Is the play the thing or just an illusion? This movie at least is just the thing for the holiday season.

For more info on the write-off: http://www.epinions.com/user-sleeper54


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD