A great motion picture.

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2005)

While many readers have discussed at great length some of the universal themes of this great film, none seem to have addressed the title. What is the Grand Illusion? When the film was introduced last night on a film channel, Peter Bogdanovich claimed it was the illusion that WWI was the "War to end all Wars", but, as Renoir made the film two years before the start of the second World War, this could not have been his meaning. I think that there are countless levels of illusion in the movie. The aristocrats, who continue to rely on their civility in the midst of a horrifying war, are clinging to an illusion of the way things should be and, hopefully will be, after the war. They seem to feel that war is a temporary interruption in the privileged lives. While war, like politics, makes strange bedfellows, in the end, the aristocrats have an illusion of themselves as truly better than the rest, even the men they have learned to care for. They seem to have no idea that their way of life has ended forever. The relationship that Gabin develops with the woman at the end of the film also strikes me as illusory; based as it is more on the loneliness of characters who have come together under exigent circumstances than a real feeling of love. Gabin's promise to come back after the war also struck me as an illusion--something he would say under the circumstances but not really plausible. Ultimately, there are two grand illusions. The first, is that war can solve human problems. No character seems to grasp the fact that mankind has warred with itself forever and never seems to have learned that any war is always a precursor to the next. (This war being perhaps the classic example). In turn, this makes "peace" an illusion as it becomes a temporary status between the next inevitable war. In the end, we feel that almost all things are illusory, be they language, all forms of personal relationships, boundaries of countries (often formed after one side wins and the other loses a war) etc. To me, the grandest illusion occurs when the two soldiers escape to Switzerland gaining their "freedom". Have they truly attained freedom or are they entering a world in which the next war is certain and they and their loved ones, will once again have to face atrocities and death? I believe this is why the last scene of the film, showing them walking to "freedom" in Switzerland does not show them walking into bright sunlight (the way a Hollywood movie would end today). Instead the scene depicts them trudging through deep snow, their movements slow and agonizing, as if they know that getting over an illusory border is no more freeing to them than the fate that awaits them in a world that cannot resolve conflict without war. Stated another way, the only thing that is real (i.e., not an illusion) is the fact that more wars are inevitable.