Worthy of its stature as one of the all-time masterpieces of cinema

Rating: 10/10 (15 July 2013)

Released in 1937, Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion remains one of the most revered films of all time seventy five years onward. The story of a group of working class Francophones trying to escape imprisonment during the First World War, the picture has been praised both for its exceptional acting and craft and its driving humanist, anti-war themes. As someone taking in this Renoir classic for the first time, I can attest that the film holds up very well.
Grand Illusion follows a company of working class French men imprisoned in a German POW camp during World War I. Amongst them the proletariat Parisian Marechal (Jean Gabin), the French Jew Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), and a nameless engineer (Gaston Modot) - they are distinct from one another but share an understanding of the futility of the war they're fighting and a desire to escape. This futility is exemplified through the interactions between the Captain of the men, De Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), and the head of the German POW camp, Von Rauffenstein (Eric Von Stroheim), who are both aristocrats and share more common ground than the respective lower class men they represent.
All of the elements of the film are at a higher tier of quality: the dialogue eloquently written, the performances subtle, the camera movements elegant (Renoir's camera has a way of artfully manoeuvring around rooms and dinner tables, following important characters as they talk and keep the plot moving forward). What truly makes Grand Illusion great though is not these formal elements but the larger statement they are in service of. Renoir was a writer with something to say, and from the scene where the French soldiers band together to put on a talent show to the final sequence where Marechal and Rosenthal are kindly taken in by a young German widow, he drives home his theme of the futility of war by highlighting the common humanity of people.
In conclusion, Grand Illusion has aged remarkably well and remains one of the cinema's great masterpieces. Tied with Rules of the Game, it is Renoir's greatest work, and a must-see for anyone with a passing interest in cinema. It's a perfect example of what quality filmmaking is: high artistry in all compartments at the service of a simple but driving truth, in this case the "grand illusion" that war is something worth pursuing.