The Grand Renoir.

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2010)

'The Grand Illusion' ('La Grande Illusion', 1937) is the second Jean Renoir film I have seen so far, after the brilliant 'The Rules of the Game', which was made two years later during what is considered by many his most creative period (he also made 'La Bete Humaine' in 1938, based on Emile Zola's novel, also regarded as a masterwork). If in 'The Rules of the Game' Renoir focuses on the French bourgeoisie and their servants at a château during the onset of World War II (the basic premise was reimagined magnificently with British flavour in Robert Altman's "Gosford Park", made sixty-two years later), 'The Grand Illusion' focuses on two officers of distinct social backgrounds captured during the conflict itself - in that case, World War I.
However, 'The Grand Illusion' is not the average war movie, those filled with pyrotechnic action and explosions. It is extremely human and poignant, but also very humorous (at least, as humorous as a war story can be - a delicate, honest humor far from the sentimentality of Roberto Benigni's 'La Vita e Bella'). Basically, the title shows that in war, both lower and upper classes are the same, despite the illusions of superiority the richer folks might have. And they are all united by the desire for freedom - and their plan to escape will be their ultimate rebellion. The cast, formed by Austrian silent era director ('Merry-Go-Round', 'Greed') and actor Erich Von Stroheim (mostly remembered nowadays as the butler in Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard", 1950), Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay and Marcel Dalio, is uniformly precise.
Highly acclaimed since its initial release (even being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1939, the first foreign language film to achieve that, losing to Capra's "You Can't Take It With You"), "The Grand Illusion''s original negative was seized by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels when the Germans occupied France, and was thought lost for decades. The prints available were not of best quality, and Renoir died (in 1979) before the original negative was found (German film archivist Frank Hensel had had the negative shipped to Berlin; it was later captured by Russians, who shipped it to Moscow; later it was sent to France!). With the best print available since its release now on the Criterion Collection DVD, "The Grand Illusion" will remain the timeless tale of life struggling, rebellion, and humanity during wartime, as relevant today as it was seventy years ago. Sad trivia: the little girl who plays Lotte never saw the film, having died of the flu weeks before the film was released.