The finest three roles in movie historyfrom three of the best actors ever

Rating: 10/10 (23 November 2007)

For obvious reasons, here is the best place to talk about Fresnay, Dita Parlo and Stroheimas they all give here extraordinarily good performances. And Dalio & Gabin do very skilled roles.
Maybe the first thing one notes is the approach of equilibrium and humane openness and healthy sympathy and wisdom and lack of resentment. This delights and offers a dependable basis for the palette of Renoir's and his actors' art. It gives the movie its entirely satisfying character.
The ability of working simultaneously with so many characters, themselves so different and diverse, is remarkable. The narration is equiangular and, in its inner structure, so dependable. Many scenes play like comedy, and the contrast of the characters (Fresnay/Gabin, Stroheim/Dalio,etc.) is also satisfying.
Well written, even better directed, filmed and scoredand even better played by its several firstclass actors.
The film is unusually well written, and I will select here but a few scenes. Take, for example, that with the prisoners caressing the feminine objectsthe stockings, and how aroused are by the touch of that stockings. And when one of them appears disguised, his comrades don't laugh but are rather disturbed by this feminine shape of their fellow.
Stroheim was the master of the largerthanlife and the thrilling extraordinary. He needed to surprise his audience. His role is so compact and so finely modulated, and Stroheim's physical appearance was so striking and unusual, that each Stroheim scene is a feast.
Fresnay's role is not very well written; Dita Parlo's is small, but well written. And the best written roles are those of Stroheim and Gabin.
Fresnay and Stroheim were masters of the sensational beauty in the interpretative artthere is something sensuous, refined, almost voluptuous, and intensely thrilling in their rolesa vibration, a virile and highly distinguished emotion. Stroheim was, perhaps, even better than Fresnay; but,as I already said, his role is also the best written one, Stroheim had this advantage. There isfrom Fresnay, Stroheim, Dita Parlo, Daliosuch an intense appetite for their roles that it's almost tangible.
I guess I've seen actresses more beautiful than Dita Parlo. Maybe. But none of them was more stunningly beautiful than Dita Parlo in The Grand Illusion . She is a country woman, and she doesn't betray her role, and she is concomitantly one of the sexiest female movie characters ever.
Allow me one paragraph about the technical aspects, very importantthe good use that Renoir makes of the deep focus. In fact, he is widely famous as one of the four artists of the deep focus. See also the great ensemble compositions, when one can watch the simultaneous behaviors of the men in the group of French prisoners.
Renoir's art was one of wise austerity here. It wasn't always like thisbut here, in this particular film ,it iswise, tactful, balanced austerity. Relatively little use of music. On the other hand, the music, when used, is very interesting. The film is also notable for another two aspectsits sense of dreamits dream note, as an almost secret but magically obvious modulation , and also its contemplative tone (not content);--and the Renoirian device of the film's frame: the showinshow (here, the stage of the prisoners' show). The sense of dream is very efficacious. Hence the amazing beauty of some scenes, and also the firmness of the touch.
The illusion is Gabin's hope that the wars will be abolished. This explains his tenacity. On the other hand, notice that he is not idealized, but kept within the coordinates of his social condition.