The first great and unsurpassed film of prisoners of war, focussing on gentlemanly soldiery

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2019)

For me, this is Jean Renoir's ultimate masterpiece, although he made many. Critics generally prefer "La règle du jeu" a few years later, which maybe reveals even greater virtuoso direction, but "La grande illusion" is deeper and more human and made with considerable compassion. What is the great illusion really? It's difficult to pinpoint this, but it has to do with the silent gentlemen's agreement between officers in war. The drama lies in the relationship between Erich von Stroheim, in the finest acting performance of his life, and Pierre Fresnay, today almost only remembered for this film, as the French officer, He and Jean Gabin with many others end up in a German prison camp during the first year of the first world war and spends the following years trying indefatigably to escape. This is the first great film of prisoners of war and perhaps the greatest. The first half of the film just shows off their ways of making their life in a prison camp as endurable as possible, there is a hilarious scene when they provide some entertainment dressed up as women, but the second half becomes more serious, as the most incorrigible prisoners, like Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay, are transferred to a prison fortress in the mountains. They have met Erich von Stroheim before, but here he is now two years later a handicapped disillusioned commandant, who grieves for his loss of capacity to fight in the war. He and Fresnay find each other, they have had the same mistress in Paris, and there is a deep a mutual respect between them for each other, which makes Fresnay reluctant to follow his fellows on a daring escape, since he knows Stroheim is relying on his word as a gentleman.
But the greatest golden character of the film lies in its extreme realism of almost a documentary character. The prisoners and officers speak French, German, English and Russian, and the life inside the prison camp is caught with an authenticity which is baffling in its natural spontaneity, which is all due to Renoir's wonderful direction. The film with its great story couldn't have been made more convincing.