Longing to leave

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2016)

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.